Note 54 — G

Ghasiya.—A Dravidian tribe found in the hill country of Mirzapur. They do not appear in the returns of the last Census, and it is now impossible to say among which of the allied Dravidian castes they were included. Under the name of Ghâsi they are found in the adjoining Bengal districts.54 In Mandla one of their septs, Markâm, is the title of a sept of Gonds.55 They extend as far as Bastar, where they are described as an inferior caste who serve as horsekeepers and also make and mend brass vessels. They dress like the Mariya Gonds, and subsist partly by cultivation and partly by labour.56 Dr. Ball describes them in Singhbhûm as gold-washers and musicians.57 Colonel Dalton speaks of them as “an extraordinary tribe, foul parasites of the Central Indian hill tribes, and submitting to be degraded even by them. If the Chandâlas of the Purânas, though descended from the union of a Brâhmani and a Sûdra are “the lowest of the low,” the Ghâsis are Chandâlas, and the people further south, who are called Pariahs, are no doubt of the same distinguished lineage. If, as I surmise, they were Aryan helots, their offices in the household or communities must have been of the lowest and most degrading kinds. It is to be observed that the institution of caste necessitated the organisation of a class to whom such offices could be assigned, and, when formed, stringent measures would be requisite to keep the servitors in their position. We might thence expect that they would avail themselves of every opportunity to escape, and no safer asylums could be found than the retreats of the forest tribes.58” In the uncertainty that still prevails as to the connection between the forest tribes and the menial castes of Hindu society, it is premature to deny the possibility of this theory; but their totemistic system of septs and their appearance generally, which approximates closely to that of the tribes which surround them, point to the supposition that they are of local Dravidian origin and not refugees driven into the jungles before the advancing Aryans. The legend recorded by Colonel Tickell makes them of common origin with Kols, Bhuiyas, and Santâls.59 The word Ghasiya appears to mean a grass-cutter. (Hindi ghâs, grass: Sanskrit ghâsa).