Note 1 — Nunia

Ojha.—The community of soothsayers and minstrels of the Gonds. The Ojhas may now be considered a distinct subtribe, as they are looked down upon by the Gonds and marry among themselves. They derive their name from the word ojh meaning ‘entrail,’ their original duty having been, like that of the Roman augurs, to examine the entrails of the victim immediately after it had been slain as an offering to the gods. In 1911 the Ojhas numbered about 5000 persons distributed over all Districts of the Central Provinces. At present the bulk of the community subsist by beggary. The word Ojha is of Sanskrit and not of Gond origin and is applied by the Hindus to the seers or magicians of several of the primitive tribes, while there is also a class of Ojha Brāhmans who practise magic and divination. The Gond Ojhas, who are the subject of this article, originally served the Gonds and begged from them alone, but in some parts of the western Satpūras they are also the minstrels of the Korkus. Those who beg from the Korkus play on a kind of drum called dhānk while the Gond Ojhas use the kingri or lyre. Some of them also catch birds and are therefore known as Moghia. Mr. Hislop1 remarks of them: “The Ojhas follow the two occupations of bard and fowler. They lead a wandering life and when passing through villages they sing from house to house the praises of their heroes, dancing with castanets in their hands, bells at their ankles and long feathers of jungle birds in their turbans. They sell live quails and the skins of a species of Buceros named Dhan-chīria; these are used for making caps and for hanging up in houses in order to secure wealth (dhan), while the thigh-bones of the same bird when fastened round the waists of children are deemed an infallible preservative against the assaults of devils and other such calamities. Their wives tattoo the arms of Hindu and Gond women. Among them there is a subdivision known as the Māna Ojhas, who rank higher than the others. Laying claim to unusual sanctity, they refuse to eat with any one, Gonds, Rājpūts or even Brāhmans, and devote themselves to the manufacture of rings and bells which are in request among their own race, and even of lingas (phallic emblems) and nandis (bull images), which they sell to all ranks of the Hindu community. Their wives are distinguished by wearing the cloth of the upper part of the body over the right shoulder, whereas those of the common Ojhas and of all the other Gonds wear it over the left.”