The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 1 (of 4)Crooke, William
History
The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 1 (of 4)
Crooke, William
Caste -- India -- History; Hindus -- India; Tribes -- India -- History
tradition that “no snake has or ever can destroy one of the family.
They seem to take no precautions against the bite, except hanging a
vessel of water over the head of the sufferer, with a small tube in the
bottom, from which the water is poured on his head as long as he can
bear it.” [202] The cobra is in fact the tribal totem.
[Other Settlements of the Bais.] 6. The Farrukhâbâd story is that the
emigrants from Dundiya Khera were led by two brothers, Hansrâj and
Bachrâj, that they were first subject to the aboriginal Bhyârs, but
finally turned against them and established themselves in Sakatpur and
Saurikh, and also in a few villages across the Isan Nadi. [203] In
Budaun there are two sub-divisions, Chaudhari and Râê, so called from
the two sons of their traditional leader, Dalîp Sinh, of Baiswâra. They
dated their immigration in Basti only five or six generations before
Dr. Buchanan wrote. [204] In Gorakhpur some call themselves Nâgbansi,
and say that they are sprung from the nose of the mythical cow,
Kâmdhenu, which belonged to the Rishi Vasishtha. The Ghâzipur branch
claim descent from Baghel Râê, who came from Baiswâra fifteen
generations ago, and colonized the jungle. [205] Their emigration into
Rohilkhand is not placed earlier than the time of Akbar.
[Sub-divisions of the Bais.] 7. Numerous castes in the Faizâbâd and
Gonda Districts, such as the Gandhariyas, the Naipuriyas, the Barwârs,
and the Châhus, claim to have been originally Bais, while the equal
lengths of their pedigrees show that they were established in these
districts at about the beginning of the sixteenth century. There are,
besides, numerous families of small landowners in the east of Râê
Bareli, who call themselves Bharadih Bais, and whose want of any
tradition of emigration and peculiar religion distinguish them from the
pure Bais of the west. Another division is that of Bhîtariya and
Bâhariya or “the outer” and “the inner” Bais. [206] “The Brâhmans of
Sultânpur relate that Tilok Chand in his old age, like another king of
distinguished wisdom, supported the prodigious responsibility of an
establishment of three hundred wives, and became the father of a family
countless as the sands of the sea. The Princesses of Rîwa and Mainpuri,
to whom he had originally been married, disgusted by an association in
which the dignity of castes had not been respected, fled from his
castle and gave rise to a distinction between the Bais from within
(Bhîtariya) and the Bais from without (Bâhariya); those from without
being the offspring of pure Râjput blood, while those from within were
of contaminated lineage, and occupied a doubtful position in the castes
system.” But the most important distinction is between the Tilokchandi
Bais or the descendants of Tilok Chand, and Kath Bais, or “wooden”
Bais. Of these Colonel MacAndrew writes [207]:—“These call themselves
Tilokchandi Bais to distinguish them from the Kath Bais, who are
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