Note 2 — Hatkar

The Hijras form apparently a separate group, and the following account of them is mainly taken from the Bombay Gazetteer.2 In Gujarāt they are the emasculated male votaries of the goddess Bouchera or Behechra, a sister of Devi. She is the spirit of a martyred Chāran or Bhāt woman. Some Chāran women were travelling from Sulkhunpur in Gujarāt when they were attacked and plundered by Kolis. One of the women, of the name of Bouchera, snatched a sword from a boy who attended her and with it cut off both her breasts. She immediately perished, and was deified and worshipped as a form of Devi in the Chunwāl.3 The Hijras usually mutilate themselves in the performance of a religious vow, sometimes taken by the mother as a means of obtaining children, and in rare cases by the boy himself to obtain recovery by the favour of the goddess from a dangerous illness.4 Hence it is clear that they worship Boucheraji on the ground that she obtained divine honours by self-mutilation and should enable her votaries to do the same. But the real reason for the Chāran woman cutting off her breasts was no doubt that her ghost might haunt and destroy the Koli robbers, in accordance with the usual practice of the Chārans.5 As a further fulfilment of their vow the Hijras pull out the hair of their beards and moustaches, bore their ears and noses for female ornaments, and affect female speech and manners. The meaning of the vow would appear to be that the mother sacrifices her great blessing of a boy child and transforms him after a fashion into a girl, at the same time devoting him to the service of the goddess. Similarly, as a much milder form of the same idea, a mother whose sons have died will sometimes bore the nose of a later-born son and put a small nose-ring in it to make believe he is a girl. But in this case the aim is also partly to cheat the goddess or the evil spirits who cause the death of children, and make them think the boy is a girl and therefore not worth taking.