CHAMANTI. TEL. Applied indifferently to all the cultivated kinds of chrysanthemum.
CHA31Alt, a scattered race in India. In Northern India, the Chamar race is generally said to be subdivided into seven sections, Jatooa, Kamm, Kooril, Jyswara, Jhoosea, Azimgurhea or Birhorea, and Korce or Korchamra, who do not eat together nor intermarry. The Jatoon are chiefly in the north-west, Delhi, Rohilkhand, and the Upper and part of the Central Doabs. The Knew' are in Bundelkhand and Saugor. The Kooril occupy the greater part of the Central and Lower Doabs. The Jyswara meet them in the neighbourhood of Allahabad, and extend through Jounpur, Mirzapur, and Benares, to the neigh bourhood of Sydpur Bhitree, where they are met by the Jhoosea, who occupy Ghazipur and Behar. The Azimgurhea have their seats in Azimgurh and Gorakhpur; and the Kori or Korchanira in Oudh. The last are generally engaged in the occupation of weaving. Others are mentioned besides these, as the Jatlote of Rohilkhand, the Ahurwar, Sukurwar, and Dohur of Central Doab; but as these latter avow some connection with the Kuril, they may perhaps be included in that tribe. In Behar we meet also with subdivi sions of Gureya, Magahi, Dukshinia, Canoujea, as well as the Jhoosea and Jyswara above mentioned, —all tending to show that the division into seven clans is imaginary.
The Dohur are mentioned in Steele's Summary, p. 128, as existing in the Dekhan along with Kutiii (cobblers) and Duphgurs (Dubgar, maker of oil bottles) ; but he does not include them amongst Chamars, of whom he enumerates the following classes Sultunger, Marat'he, Pruadosh, Purdesi, littralbhutel, Dubali, Woje, Chour.
Chamars are a dark race, and a fair Chamar is said to be as rare an object as a black Brahman.
Korea Brahman gor Chamar. In ke sat'h na ootriye par.
That is, 'Go not in the same boat with a black Brahman or a white Chamar, both objects being considered of evil omen.' Many of the Chamar of the Central Provinces have joined the reformed Sat-natni sect. The Chamar of Hindustan, in respect to members and avocations, are iu the same position as the Pariahs, Chakkili, Mbar, Mhang, Hollar races of the south of the Peninsula, where the designations of tanners and leather workers are Sanigar, Madiga, . Chakkili.. . . . Tan. Madaru, Madigaru, COORO. Madiga, Madira, Chahar, . . . . HIND. M ? Iola, . . . TEL. Milan, . . . . MAIM.
The Mang or Mhang are scattered through all the north-western parts of the Indian Peninsula, in the Bombay Presidency, in Gujerat, Kandesh, the Konkan, and Kolhapur.
Tanners and leather-workers are perhaps the most humble of all the settled races in the south of India. There they dwell outside the walls of the villages. They are deemed wholly unclean. They are tanners, workers in raw hides and leather, shoe and harness makers, messengers, scavengers, and executioners. They are never horse-keepers, and only a very few have ever been known to have the ability to read or write. The race, as a rule, are of a dark, black hue, short in stature, and of very slender frame ; lower limbs particularly slight, and calf and foot delicate. They still eat creatures that most races regard as unclean, and likewise eat animals which die of disease. • In rural villages they perform the lowest menial offices, such as messengers and scavengers, and are paid by portions of the crops and some small privileges, but are not permitted to reside within the village walls. The Madaru and Madigaru of Coorg are predial slaves, and seem identical with this race. The Madaru make
baskets. In Northern India and in Bengal the Chamar race are workers in hides and leather, tanners, and shoe and harness makers, and there form the great bulk of the labourers, taking the place of the Dher and Pariah of the Peninsula. There are many sections of leather-workers throughout the Hyderabad country, and in Bcrar they serve as scavenger, guide, watchman, and executioner. Their signature mark is a knife. They are part of the Baluth, and, like the Pariah, are the predial slaves of the village. The Pendi Mang are athletre. The Mhang worship the leather ropes which they make. They also make cakes, which they place in the ground, and over it five stones and a lamp, and worship these. They also worship the spirits of departed men :who have led evil lives. They claim the right to have for food cattle and camels and horses that die of disease, but in some villages this is disputed by the Dher or Pariah ; and in the village of Dangopura, in 1866 and 1867, this point was for twenty months under litigation, the ultimate decision being in favour of the Dher. In the Northern Dekhan are the sections Mang Garoro, Hollar Mang, Dekhan Mang. The Mang Garoro are also styled Pharasti' or migrants, as they have no settled abode, but move from place to place begging ; their men and women assume other clothes, and smear their foreheads with the red kuku, a mixture of turmeric and safflower. They also are conjurors and sleight-of-hand adepts, from which they have their name Garori. The men also beat the dium.
The Bandela and Kuillar Chamar is a tanner and shoemaker ; Mahratta Chamar, a shoemaker ; Pardesi Chamar, a cobbler ; Mang Chamar, who makes sandals • Mahomedan Chamar, who is a ' bookbinder • Katai Chamar, who make shoes and sandals, and labour in the delds at seed and har vest times. The Katai are identical in personal appearance with the Chuckler (chakkili) of the very south of India.
The Chamar of Aurangabad worship Mariamma and Sitla. They marry when under age amongst themselves, proceeding oii foot to the goddess Sitla, whose shrine they circumambulate five times. The expense is about a hundred rupees. They speak Hindi. They burn their dead ; but some very intelligent men at Aurangabad did not know that anything followed death.
In the great isolated plain of Ch'hattisgarh, where the jungle has not even yet been thoroughly mastered by man, the Chamar, who makeup some twelve per cent. of the population, are nearly all cultivators. The creed adopted by them is the Satnami' or Rai Dasi,' a branch of one of the most celebrated dissenting movements in Indian religious history. No images are allowed ; it is not even lawful to approach the Supreme Being by external forms of worship, except the morning and evening invocation of his pure name (Sat nam), but believers are enjoined to keep him con stantly in their minds, and to show their religion by charity. Even if the creed be weak as a moral support, it is strong as a social bond ; and, no longer weighed down by a sense of inferiority, the Satnami hold together, and resist all attempts from other castes to re-assert their traditional domina tion over them. They are good and loyal subjects ; and when they have grown out of a certain in stability and improvidence, which are the natural result of their long depressed condition, they will become valuable members of the community.— Rost, Edition of Wilson's Essays on the Religion of the Hindus, i. p. 113 (1862).