The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India,...

Otāri, Watkari.—A low caste of workers in brass in the Marātha country. The name is derived from the Marāthi verb otne, to pour or smelt. They number about 2600 persons in the Bhandāra and Chānda Districts, and in Berār. The caste have two subcastes, Gondādya and Marātha, or the Gond and Marātha Otāris. The latter are no doubt members of other castes who have taken to brass-working. Members of the two subcastes do not eat with each other. Their family names are of different kinds, and some of them are totemistic. They employ Brāhmans for their ceremonies, and otherwise their customs are like those of the lower artisan castes. But it is reported that they have a survival of marriage by capture, and if a man refuses to give his daughter in marriage after being asked twice or thrice, they abduct the girl and afterwards pay some compensation to the father. They make and sell ornaments of brass and bell-metal, such as are worn by the lower castes, and travel from village to village, hawking their toe-rings and anklets. There is also an Otāri subcaste of Kasārs.

Pābia.—A small caste in the zamīndāris of the Bilāspur District, and some of the Feudatory States, who numbered about 9000 persons in 1911. They appear to be Pāns or Gāndas, who also bear the name of Pāb, and this has been corrupted into Pābia, perhaps with a view to hiding their origin. They are wretchedly poor and ignorant. They say that they have never been to a Government dispensary, and would be afraid that medicine obtained from it would kill them. Their only remedies for diseases are branding the part affected or calling in a magician. They never send their children to school, as they hold that educated children are of no value to their parents, and that the object of Government in opening schools is only to obtain literate persons to carry on its business. One curious custom may be noticed. When any one dies in a family, all the members, as soon as the breath leaves his body, go into another room of the house; and across the door they lay a net opened into the room where the corpse lies. They think that the spirit of the dead man will follow them, and will be caught in the net. Then the net is carried away and burnt or buried with the corpse, and thus they think that the spirit is removed and prevented from remaining about the house and troubling the survivors.

Pahalwān.—A small community numbering about 600 persons in the Bilāspur District and surrounding tracts of Chhattīsgarh. The word Pahalwān means a wrestler, but Sir B. Robertson states70 that they are a small caste of singing beggars and have no connection with wrestling. They appear, however, to belong to the Gopāl caste, who have a branch of Pahalwāns in their community. And the men returned from Bilāspur may have abandoned wrestling in favour of singing and begging from trees, which is also a calling of the Gopāls. They themselves say that their ancestors were Gopāls and lived somewhere towards Berār, and that they came to Bilāspur with the Marātha leader Chimnāji Bhonsla.