Similar meaningless charms are employed for curing the bites of scorpions and for exorcising bad spirits and the influence of the evil eye.
The Gaurias will eat almost all kinds of flesh, including pigs, rats, fowls and jackals, but they abstain from beef. Their social status is so low that practically no caste will take food or water from them, but they are not considered as impure. They are great drunkards, and are easily known by their damrus or rattles and the baskets in which they carry their snakes.
1. Description of the caste. 2. Subcastes. 3. Exogamous sections. 4. Marriage. 5. Religion and superstitions. 6. Occupation. 7. Social customs. 8. Ghasias and Kayasths.
Ghasia, Sais. [23]--A low Dravidian caste of Orissa and Central India who cut grass, tend horses and act as village musicians at festivals. In the Central Provinces they numbered 43,000 in 1911, residing principally in the Chhattisgarh Division and the adjoining Feudatory States. The word Ghasia is derived from ghas (grass) and means a grass-cutter. Sir H. Risley states that they are a fishing and cultivating caste of Chota Nagpur and Central India, who attend as musicians at weddings and festivals and also perform menial offices of all kinds. [24] In Bastar they are described as an inferior caste who serve as horse-keepers and also make and mend brass vessels. They dress like the Maria Gonds and subsist partly by cultivation and partly by labour. [25] Dr. Ball describes them in Singhbhum as gold-washers and musicians. 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 Chandals of the Puranas, though descended from the union of a Brahmini and a Sudra, are the lowest of the low, the Ghasias are Chandals and the people further south who are called Pariahs are no doubt of the same distinguished lineage." [26]
The Ghasias generally, however, appear now to be a harmless caste of labourers without any specially degrading or repulsive traits. In Mandla their social position and customs are much on a par with those of the Gonds, from whom a considerable section of the caste seems to be derived. In other localities they have probably immigrated into the Central Provinces from Bundelkhand and Orissa. Among their subdivisions the following may be mentioned: the Udia, who cure raw hides and do the work of sweepers and are generally looked down on; the Dingkuchia, who castrate cattle and ponies; the Dolboha, who carry dhoolies or palanquins; the Nagarchi, who derive their name from the nakkara or kettle-drum and are village musicians; the Khaltaha or those from Raipur; the Laria, belonging to Chhattisgarh, and the Uria of the Uriya country; the Ramgarhia, who take their name from Ramgarh in the Mandla District, and the Mahobia from Mahoba in Bundelkhand. Those members of the caste who work as grooms have become a separate group and call themselves Sais, dropping the name of Ghasia. They rank higher than the others and marry among themselves, and some of them have become cultivators or work as village watchmen. They are also called Thanwar by the Gonds, the word meaning stable or stall. In Chota Nagpur a number of Ghasias have become tailors and are tending to form a separate subcaste under the name of Darzi.