Note 13 — C

Traditions of origin. 2. One curious legend of the origin of the tribe has been referred to in connection with the Agarwâla Banyas:—Once upon a time a certain Râja had two daughters, Châmu and Bâmu. These married, and each gave birth to a son who was a prodigy of strength (pahlwân). An elephant happened to die in the Râja’s palace, and being unwilling that it should be cut up, he searched for a man strong enough to take it out whole and bury it. Châmu undertook and performed the task. Bâmu pronounced him an outcast; so the Banyas are sprung from Bâmu, and the Chamârs from Châmu. Another legend tells how five Brâhman brothers were passing along together. They saw a carcass of a cow lying on the way. Four of them turned aside; but the fifth removed the dead body. His brethren excommunicated him, and since then it has been the business of his descendants to remove the carcasses of cattle. Another tradition makes them out to be the descendants of Nona or Lona Chamârin, who is a deified witch much dreaded in the eastern part of the Province. Her legend tells how Dhanwantari, the physician of the gods, was bitten by Takshaka, the king of the snakes, and knowing that death approached he ordered his son to cook and eat his body after his death, so that they might thereby inherit his skill in medicine.13 They accordingly cooked his body in a cauldron, and were about to eat it, when Takshaka appeared to them in the form of a Brâhman, and warned them against this act of cannibalism. So they let the cauldron float down the Ganges, and as it floated down, Lona, the Chamârin, who was washing on the bank of the river, not knowing that the vessel contained human flesh, took it out and partook of the ghastly food. She at once obtained power to cure diseases, and especially snake-bite. One day all the women were transplanting rice, and it was found that Lona could do as much work as all her companions put together. So they watched her, and when she thought she was alone she stripped off all her clothes (nudity being an essential element in all magic), muttered some spells, and throwing the plants into the air they all settled down in their proper places. Finding she was observed she tried to escape, and as she ran the earth opened, and all the water of the rice fields followed her, and thus was formed the channel of the Loni river in the Unâo District.