The Gond Tribe Of India: Who are Gond tribes?
Gonds are one of the largest tribal groups in India. Gond people are spread across many states of India – Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh.
They are mainly a nomadic tribe and call themselves Koytoria. The term ‘Gond’ is derived from the Telugu word ‘Konda’ which means hill. There are three major sub-castes of Gonds which are; Bastar – Maria, Muria and Dorla.
Source: the gondwana
Gondi is the mother tongue of the Gonds. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is closely related to Tamil and Kannada. However, due to constant migration, many Gonds are bilingual or trilingual, speaking Hindi, Marathi, or Telegu as well as their mother tongue.
Marriage Rites Of The Gond Tribe Of India
Marriage customs among the Gonds reflect broader regional patterns, with the clan responsible for the primary social institution that regulates marriage.
Polygamy is only being restrained as a result of the incapability of the man to support more than one wife. Marriage within the blood relations is much more preferred and largely encouraged, making cross-cousin marriages a norm among the Gonds.
A popular practice among Gonds is the ‘Ghotul’ system. In this system, the unmarried young boys and girls live together in separately made huts and are allowed to intermingle and practice everything they desire.
During this period they interact and enjoy themselves by participating in singing and dancing among other socio-cultural events. If everything goes fine and both of them are happy, they can get out of the Ghotul and marry.
The Ghotul system is mainly practiced among the Muria Gonds and the origin of this system is related to their goddess ‘Lingopan’.
Irregular forms of marriage among the Gonds are the elopement of an unmarried girl with a boy or the capture of a girl and her forced marriage to her captor.
Marriage by capture was in the past a popular form of Marriage among the Gonds. The marriage must later be legalized by the relatives and village councils of the partners.
Furthermore, widow marriage is forbidden only among the Sanskritized Gonds. The other Gonds allow widow re-marriage. A younger brother may marry the widow of his elder brother, but an elder brother may not marry the widow of his younger brother.
MARRIAGE RITES
Originally Gond boys and girls married on reaching physical maturity. Nowadays the Gonds increasingly follow the example of the rural Hindu population and parents arrange marriage when children are still young.
Formerly, the parents try to find a suitable girl for their sons after coming of age. Several findings are being carried out by the groom’s family about the intending bride’s family.
After an extensive background check on the bride and her family, the boy’s father and an older male relative pay a visit to the girl’s home on a predetermined day to begin discussions.
The marriage agreement of both families is still subjected to approval by the tribal council. Afterwards, the groom’s father is tasked with paying the bride price to the bride’s family. The value of the bride price, however, depends on the position and wealth of both families.
A Gond wedding is accompanied by various significant ceremonies, although, in general, rites conform to the marriage customs of the locality. The central rite of the Gond wedding consists of the groom walking with his bride seven times around a wedding post erected in the centre of the wedding booth.
Another ancient marriage tradition among the Gonds is the ritual killing of an animal (mostly a Pig), brought by the bride. According to this unique ritual, the marriage of the bride and groom is considered to be perfect only when the groom not only kills the animal (pig) but drinks fresh hot blood from its leg.
The bride does not get married without following the custom. The Gondi tribe is far from modernity, and still follows the rules that they believed in hundreds of years ago.
The various marriage rites and rituals including the exchange of vows before the tribal council are subsequently preceded by extensive feasting, and merriment for three days.
On the third day, the wedding dinner is held where there is excessive Mohua wine drink, food, singing and dances displayed by the Dandari dancers.
Gond society is patrilocal and the newlyweds reside with the groom’s family until a specified time before moving into a house of their own. Although the extended family is traditional among the Gonds, the nuclear family is becoming more common. Inheritance passes down the male line, with all sons receiving equal shares.
CONCLUSION
The Gondi marriage is an elaborate socio-cultural and it does not involve life long bond between the couple. A normal marriage among the Gonds is the monogamous union of a man and a woman based on mutual choice.
There is a system of dowry or bride price among the Gondi that is required to be paid to the bride’s father. The value of the bride price payment is variable and depends on the status of the families.
However, Gonds who are too poor to pay the bride price and the wedding expenses contract a Service marriage, where the groom stays at the bride’s house and offers his service to the household for a specified time.
Although the Gonds have liberal views on premarital sex, they are strict in the observance of married fidelity. They believe that adultery is punished by the ancestral spirits that can cause crop failure or an epidemic among humans and cattle.
