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

Satani.87—A Telugu caste of priests and mendicants of which 900 persons were returned, principally from the Chānda District, in 1911. In the Central Provinces, Ayāwar, Sātani and Dāsari have been taken as one caste, but elsewhere they are considered as distinct. Ayāwar is a term of respect analogous to the Hindustāni Mahārāj, and is applied to the Sātanis and other religious orders. The Sātanis and Dāsaris are distinguished in Madras; Sātani is stated88 to be a corruption of Sāttādavan, which means ‘One who does not wear’ (e.g. the sacred thread and scalp-lock). It is a mixed religious order recruited from any caste except the Pariahs, leather-workers and Muhammadans. The Dāsaris89 are said to be the reputed descendants of a wealthy Sūdra of one of the northern Districts, who, being childless, vowed that if offspring should be granted to him he would devote a son to the service of the god. After this he had several children, one of whom he consecrated to the deity, calling him Dāsan (the obedient servant). Dāsan and his offspring made their livelihood by begging. This order, like that of the Sātanis, is reinforced by idle members of the lower Sūdra castes, who become Dāsaris by being branded by the Guru of Tirupatti and other shrines. In the Central Provinces the Dāsaris are stated to be recruited from the impure Māla caste of the Telugu country, and hence to rank below the Sātanis. Many of the Madrāsi servants in European households call themselves Dāsaris.

Members of the agricultural castes are usually admitted into the Sātani order and its status is almost equal to theirs. The caste, in spite of its small numbers, has several subdivisions, as the Sāle Sātanis, who are weavers, the Bukkas, who are sellers of kunku or red powder, and five other subdivisions who are all beggars. Some of these eat together but do not intermarry. They have exogamous family groups, usually named after sacred places in Madras or celebrated Gurus (spiritual preceptors) or deities, as Tirupatti, Rāmanujamwār, Shāligrāmwār and so on. The caste marry in the ordinary way and do not observe celibacy. Widow-marriage is allowed, but a widow must marry a widower, and the officiating priest at the ceremony must also be a widower. The Sātanis principally revere Vishnu, whom they worship on Fridays. Their priests are taken from their own order and form a separate subcaste under the name of Parmastwār. A novice, on being initiated to the order, is branded with the figures of a Sankha (conch-shell) and Chakra (discus). They both burn and bury the dead, and the spirits of female as well as of male ancestors are propitiated. This is done by calling a married woman by the name of the dead female, putting red powder on her forehead and worshipping her. Among the Sātanis a widow accompanies the corpse of her husband to the grave. They officiate at funerals, and a Sātani priest applies the caste-mark to the body of the corpse and also to that of the four persons who are to carry it.

He receives presents in the name of the dead man, and takes the red cloth with which the corpse is covered. At the funeral feast the Sātani offers cooked food, including flesh and also liquor, to the god, and the assembled guests then partake of them. The Sātani drinks liquor only and does not eat the food, and since he must stay to the end of the feast he sometimes becomes intoxicated. The Sātanis are priests and mendicants. Though they do not wear the sacred thread themselves, the manufacture of it is one of their hereditary occupations. They collect alms in a lota or brass vessel, on which representations of the conch and discus are drawn. The Dāsaris wander about, singing hymns to a monotonous accompaniment upon a leather instrument called tappai (perhaps a tabor). They are engaged by some Sūdra castes to sing their chants in front of the corpse at funerals. Others exhibit what is called the Panda sewai, that is, they become possessed by the deity and beat themselves over the body with a flaming torch. A few train young bulls to perform tricks and travel about exhibiting them. Some have become masons and goldsmiths. Men have the mark of the trident on the forehead, the two outer lines being white and the middle one red or yellow. They shave the head and face clean, not retaining the scalp-lock. Women have a vertical streak on the forehead and do not wear glass bangles nor the necklace of black beads. Neither men nor women are tattooed. The Sātanis have a fairly good social position and the lower castes will take food from them.

Segidi,90Shegadi.—The Telugu caste of toddy-drawers and distillers, of which a few representatives were returned from the Nāgpur District in 1901. They will draw tāri or palm-juice only from the sindi palm (Phoenix sylvestris) and not from the palmyra palm (Borassics flabelliformis). This is the occupation of a separate caste, the Yātas, from whom the Segidis will not even take water. At a Segidi marriage the bride is shown the polar star, which is believed to be the wife of Rishi Vasishtha, the model of conjugal excellence. She is then made to step on to a stone slab to remind her how Ahalya, the beautiful wife of Rishi Gautama, was turned to a stone for committing adultery. Widow-marriage is permitted, and, by a very curious exception to the ordinary rule, a widow may marry her deceased husband’s elder brother but not his younger one. The usual prohibition on a widow marrying her husband’s elder brother is based on the ground that he is looked on as her father; the Segidis say, on the other hand, that his younger brother is as her son. If an unmarried adult male dies, the ceremony of marriage is performed between the corpse and a plantain tree; and if an unmarried woman dies she is married to a sword. A corpse is always buried with the head to the east and the feet to the west. This peculiar practice may be a reminiscence of Vedic times, when the west was considered to be the abode of the departed, the sun being the first mortal who died and went to the west as recorded in the Rig-Veda. The Segidis are also cultivators, traders or soldiers.

They have a method of divining a boy’s proper calling in his infancy. When his mouth is touched with grain as food for the first time, they put a sword, a pen, a book, food and other articles, being the symbols of different professions, on the ground and place the child in front of them. And his vocation in life is held to be determined by the article which he touches first.

Siddi, Sidi, Habshi.—The name given to Africans, whether Abyssinians or Negroes. Habshi means one coming from El Habish, the Arabic name for North-East Africa. Siddi is a corruption of Saiyad, the designation of a descendant of the Prophet, and is commonly used as a term of respectful address in North Africa, like Sāhib in India. The Bombay Gazetteer states91 that about the middle of the fifteenth century, when the Bahmani dynasty became independent of Delhi and intercourse with Northern India ceased, the fashion arose of bringing to Western India large numbers of Abyssinians and other East Africans. Though most of the Habshis came to India as slaves, their faithfulness, courage and energy often raised them to positions of high trust in the Bahmani court. According to Orme, the successful Abyssinians gathered round them all of their countrymen whom they could procure either by purchase or invitation, including negroes from other parts of Africa, as well as Abyssinians. From their marriages, first with natives of India and afterwards among their own families, there arose a separate community, distinct from other Muhammadans in figure, colour and character. As soon as they were strong enough they formed themselves into an aristocratic republic and produced some of the most skilful and daring soldiers and sailors of Western India. The rulers of Janjira and Sachin States in Bombay are Siddis by descent.

They are now employed as stokers and firemen on steamers and as fitters and mechanics in the dockyards of Bombay, and are described92 as “A hardy race with muscular frames, thick lips and crisp black hair—the very last men whom you would wish to meet in a rough-and-tumble, and yet withal a jovial people, well-disposed and hospitable to any one whom they regard as a friend.” In other parts of India the Siddis are usually beggars and are described as ‘Fond of intoxicating drinks, quarrelsome, dirty, unthrifty and pleasure-loving, obstinacy being their leading trait.’ They worship Bāba Ghor, an Abyssinian saint.93

It is recorded that the medicine called Silājit, a nervine tonic for the generative power, was formerly believed to be prepared from the flesh of Abyssinian boys. Mr. Hooper writes: “Silājit is allied to another ancient drug named Momiayi which has long been employed in the East. The original drug is said to have been made from Egyptian mummies, and subsequently to have been prepared by boiling down and extracting the essence of Abyssinian boys. Since the last source of supply has become scarce, several bituminous exudations are reported to have been substituted.”94 The drug is now said to be made from the gum of some stone in Hardwār, and this must be the bitumen referred to by Mr. Hooper. The virtue ascribed to the flesh of Abyssinian boys was no doubt based on their superior bodily strength and perhaps partly on the prolificacy of the negroes. In the case of mummies, as the body of the mummy was believed to have retained life or the capacity of life for many ages, its material would naturally possess extraordinary vitality and should be capable of imparting this quality to others when assimilated into their bodies.

Sidhira, Sithira.—A small occupational caste of Sambalpur and the Uriya States. The caste is not found elsewhere in India. They are braziers by trade, and in spite of their small numbers say they have three subcastes, one of which, the Luhura, works in iron. They are an impure caste, whose touch conveys pollution in Sambalpur. They accept alms from a Munda or Oraon on the occasion of a death in the latter’s family, and have totemistic septs. They eat fowls and rats and consume much liquor. They also admit outsiders into the caste. It may be concluded, therefore, that they are an occupational caste formed from the tribes above mentioned or others, through adopting the calling of brass-workers. The adultery of a Sidhira woman with a man of any higher caste is looked upon as an absolutely trifling offence, and this is a common feature of low castes of mixed origin. As among many primitive tribes, one particular sept performs the ceremony of readmitting offenders to caste intercourse by sprinkling a little Ganges water over them. The man fulfilling this office is known as the Baikar, and after a wedding the bridal pair go to the Baikar’s house and he pours two jars full of water over their heads and bodies. They go inside the house, and the bridegroom then comes out and gives the wet clothes to the Baikar with a small present. This appears to be a sort of purificatory ceremony at marriage.