Note 69 — D. (continued 2)

Dom;69 Domra; Domahra (Sans. Doma; Dama; Domba), a Dravidian menial caste found scattered throughout these Provinces, regarding whose origin and ethnological affinities there has been much speculation. To the east of the Province they are usually known as Dom, but are sometimes called Jallâd, “executioner,” Hatyâra, “murderous, blood-thirsty,” or Supach, which is, as we shall see, traditionally the name of the founder of the tribe, and who also enters into the legends of the Bhangis. The name seems to represent the Svapâka or “cooker of dogs,” a man of a degraded and outcast tribe, the son of an Ugra woman by a Kshatriya. He is required to live outside towns like the Chandâla, to eat his food in broken vessels, to wear the clothes of the dead, and to be excluded from all intercourse with other tribes; he can possess no other property than asses and dogs, and his only office is to act as public executioner or to carry out the bodies of those who die without kindred. His kinsman, the Chandâla, according to Manu,70 ranks in impurity with the town boar, the dog, a woman in her courses, and an eunuch, none of whom must a Brâhman allow to see him when eating. According to Dr. Caldwell71 they are the surviving representatives of an older, ruder, and blacker race who preceded the Dravidians in India. Sir H. M. Elliot72 considers them to be “one of the original tribes of India. Tradition fixes their residence to the north of the Ghâgra, touching the Bhars on the east in the vicinity of the Rohini. Several old forts testify to their former importance, and still retain the names of their founders, as, for instance, Domdiha and Domingarh, in the Gorakhpur District. Râmgarh and Sahnkot, on the Rohini, are also Dom forts.” Attempts have, also, been made to connect them in some way with the Domkatâr or Domtikâr Râjputs of Gorakhpur, and with the Domwâr Bhuînhârs.73 All this discussion is, as Mr. Risley says, somewhat profitless; but out of it seems to emerge “a general consensus of opinion that the Doms belong to one of the races whom, for convenience of expression, we may call the aborigines of India. Their personal appearance bears out this opinion.” Mr. Beames74 describes the Doms of Champâran as “small and dark, with long tresses of unkempt hair, and the peculiar glassy eye of the non-Aryan autochthon,” and Mr. Sherring75 remarks that “dark-complexioned, low of stature, and somewhat repulsive in appearance, they are readily distinguished from all the better castes of Hindus.” “The type, however,” Mr. Risley adds, “as is the case with most widely-diffused castes, seems to display appreciable variations. In Eastern Bengal, according to Dr. Wise, the Dom’s hair is long, black, and coarse, while his complexion is oftener of a brown than a black hue; and among the Magahiya Doms, whom I have seen in Bihâr, only a small portion struck me as showing any marked resemblance to the aborigines of Chota Nâgpur, who are, I suppose, among the purest specimens of the non-Aryan races of India. On the whole, however, the prevalent type of physique and complexion seems to mark the caste as not of Aryan descent, although evidence is wanting to connect it with any compact aboriginal tribe of the present day. The fact that for centuries they have been condemned to the most menial duties, and have served as the helots of the entire village community, would, of itself, be sufficient to break down whatever tribal spirit they may once have possessed, and to obliterate all structural traces of their true origin.”