Volume 2 / Part 2 — Dahāit1
Reading edition
Dahāit1
List of Paragraphs
1. Origin of the caste.
2. Internal structure: totemism.
3. Marriage and other customs.
4. Social position.
5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.
6. The umbrella.
7. Significance of the umbrella.
1. Origin of the caste.
2. Internal structure: totemism.
3. Marriage and other customs.
4. Social position.
The Dahāits are now commonly employed as village watchmen and as guards or porters (chaukidār) of houses. In Bilāspur they also carry litters and work as navvies and stonebreakers like the Kols. Here they will eat pork, but in Jubbulpore greater regard is paid to Hindu prejudice, and they have given up pork and fowls and begun to employ Brāhmans for their ceremonies. The men of the caste will accept cooked food from any man of the higher castes or those cultivators from whom a Brāhman will take water, but the women are more strict and will only accept it from a Brāhman, Bania, Lodhi or Kurmi.
5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.
6. The umbrella.
The umbrella of state was apparently not black like its successor of commerce, but of white or another colour, though the colour is seldom recorded. Sometimes it was of peacock’s feathers, the symbol of the Indian war-god, and as seen above, in Italy it was of red, the royal colour. It has been suggested that the halo originally represented an umbrella, and there is no reason to doubt that the umbrella was the parent of the state canopy.
7. Significance of the umbrella.
Even recently it is said that in Saugor no Bania dare go past a Bundela Rājpūt’s house without getting down from his pony and folding up his umbrella. In Hindu slang a ‘Chhatawāli’ or carrier of an umbrella was a term for a smart young man; as in the line, ‘An umbrella has two kinds of ribs; two women are quarrelling for the love of him who carries it.’ Now that the umbrella is free to all, and may be bought for a rupee or less in the bazār, the prestige which once attached to it has practically disappeared. But some flavour of its old associations may still cling to it in the minds of the sais and ayah who proudly parade to a festival carrying umbrellas spread over them to shade their dusky features from the sun; though the Rāja, in obedience to the dictates of fashion, has discarded the umbrella for a sola-topi.