Culture

The Bhils formerly lived in hive-like huts cresting the tops of isolated hills to be crept into for a few weeks and then left. Most of them still live in thatched huts, but leave them at once if disease breaks out or if the hamlet is found to be inauspicious, unlucky or haunted. Such of them as have settled down on the plains have stoned buildings, having walls of unburnt bricks and a roof of mud with a small verandah infront and divided inside into two or three rooms. Each household has some metal and a good many earthen vessels, a stone slab with a roller, a hand mill and a large knife for cutting vegetables, a charpoy or two with a bedding, a blanket and a quilt made of pieces of clothes stitched together. Their possessions are a cow or a buffalo, a few fowls, a small fishing net, a bow and a good stock of arrows and sometimes a sword.

Bhills living in the hills have scarcely any clothing except a piece of loincloth and their women wear coarse tattered saris. The peasant Bhil wears a turban, a waistcloth and a coat and their women have ‘sadi’ with or without a bodice.

Festivals and Ceremonies:

The more civilized Bhils of the plains have complete birth, marriage and death ceremonies not differing much in detail from those practiced by higher class Hindus.

Marriage:

A marriage proposal has to be made by the bridegroom’s side through some intermediary. If the father of the girl agrees the girl is brought out and seated among the guests from the bridegroom’s side and a packet o sweet-meats is given to her. This done, they dine together and with the help of an astrologer a betrothal day is fixed. On the betrothal day, an astrologer, the boy, his father and other relations take a ‘side’, a bodice piece and go to the girl’s house. A final announcement is made in the presence of ‘pancas’. The present are given to the girl. The girl’s father entertains the guests. There is no fixed interval between betrothal and marriage. It may be a month or years. When in a position to meet marriage expenses, the boy’s father sends word to the girl’s father that he would shortly bring dowry or ‘dahej’ called ‘ghun’ in Bhill language. The dowry is settled in a meeting of all and placed in a plate. An unmarried girl of the bride’s family puts red power on it and on the brows of the bride and the groom. The bride is asked to sit on the boy’s father’s lap and he gives the ‘ghun’ to her. After a feast, the evening is spent in dance and music. Next day, the boys’ father fixes the marriage day in consultation with a family priest. What follows is very much akin to what obtains among other Hindus castes.

Bhils have so far allowed and practiced polygamy but nowadays, there are only monogamous marriages. Window marriage is also customarily allowed. When a man wishes to marry a widow, he sends same friends to urge his suit with the women or her parents and relatives. If he proposal is accepted, the suitor takes to the women’s house a ‘sadi’ and a piece of bodice cloth, a head necklace and some boiled gram and sugar. The match is then settled. The man takes with him a few friends and materials for a feast and they share a the food with a party of the women’s relations. The women dresses herself in the clothes brought to her and after the guest start for some distant place, before day break and spend the whole day in the filed, in some lonely place where friends send them food. These widow marriages are often preceded by an elopement, which after the payment of a fee to the head of the community, are condoned by the parents and relations.

Divorce:

A married women can get a divorce and remarry the man of her choice provided the proposed husband is ready to pay to the first the money which he had spent at the time of the first marriage of the women. This divorce system is called ‘jhgda’. No particular disgrace seems to the women who had divorced more than one husband.

Death:

When a Bhil is about to die, his relative distributes money among the poor in his name. After death his boy is laid on a blanket or on a piece of cloth spread over a blanket. An earthen pot full of cold water is placed near the door of the house and the body is brought out, held in a sitting position outside the door and water is poured on it. Old clothes are taken off and a new piece of cloth is tied round loins. The body on bier and covered with a new sheet of white cloth. The face is left bare and the head is covered with a turban. ‘Gulal’ is sprinkled over the some bread and cooked rice are tied together in a piece of cloth and laid on the bier. The dead body is neatly tied and taken to the burial place over the shoulders of four nearest relatives. In front of them the sons of the deceased walk, one of the chief mourners carrying fire in an earthen jar and of the others carrying an earthen jug full of water. Halfway the grave, the bier is lowered and some of the cooked food is laid near a bush. The bearers change places and without any further halt, the body is carried to the burial ground. The bier is lowered and all the mourners help in digging a grave long enough for the body and to prevent its being opened by wild animals five or six feet deep. The body is laid in the grave, the head to the south and arms stretched along either side. Cooked rice and bred are placed in the mouth and the body is sprinkled with water . The whole party sit around the grave so far off that they cannot see the body and the chief mourner throws a handful of earth on the corpse and then all joining cover with earth. A small trench is cut round the grave and water is poured in it.

The bier is broken into piece and burnt. The funeral party then goes to the nearest water place, bathes and accompanies the chief mourner to his house. In front of his house a fire is lit and into it some women’s hair is burnt and each of the mourners take some neem leaves, throws them on the fire and passing his open palms through the smoke rubs them over his face. The mourners are now pure and return to their homes. On the third day, one of the women of the mourning household rubs the shoulders of the bier-bearers with oil, milk and cow dung and washes them with neem twigs steeped in cow’s urine. Then the four men bathe and are treated to a diner. On the eleventh day the chief mourner goes to a river and gets his beard, head and faced shaved. After taking a bath he makes a dough cow, sprinkles red powder on it and setting it in a banana leaf, bows to it and throws it into water. After one more bath he goes home. Either on the twelfth or the forty-fifth day a kumbhar (potter) is called and seven step hemp ladder called ‘codhvan’ is set against the wall of the house, the belief being that the soul of a dead person may climb by the ladder to heaven. The priest sits at the foot of the ladder and chants some verses from the,’puranas’ and the string by which the ladder is fastened to the ground is burnt, the ladder is pulled down and thrown away. The spot where the ladder was tied is then spread over with flour and a small plate with a piece of bread and cooked rice is laid over it. In the plate placed is small water pot and its side a lighted lamp covered by an empty bamboo basket with cloth drawn over. On this day a big feast is given to relatives and friends, but before beginning it, five mouthfuls are burnt near the basket. The burial rites for a woman are the same as those of a man. In the case of a child, its father carries the body in his arms and buries it. A feast celebrates the seventh day. In rare cease Bhils are also known to burn their dead bodies.