Bara Gotra

What “Gotra” means for the Oraon

Oraon families call their clan a gotra (Roy 1915, pp. 325, 335): a totemic clan passed from father to children, within which no one may marry, though a man may marry into his mother's clan. It is not a Vedic gotra and names no rishi.

Name and Origin

The clan is named after the bar or banyan tree (Roy 1915, p. 326). Roy records no story of how the clan took it. A clan of the same name, Bar, also appears among the Dudh Kharia in Roy and Roy's list, glossed as a tree, and in Risley's list of Kharia clans, which they quote, as Ficus indica (1937, pp. 131, 143).

Historical Journey

No written history of the Bara clan is known; what is recorded is its rules. Roy uses it to show how Oraon clans eased a rule where keeping it in full was hard: men of the Bara clan may not eat the bar fruit split in two, but may eat it whole (1915, p. 331). He sets it beside the Paddy clan, which avoids only the scum on cooling rice-soup, and the Salt clan, which avoids only raw salt. For tree totems in general he records that men of the clan will not go into the tree's shade, cut or burn its wood, or use what it gives (p. 330).

How the Gotra Is Kept

Members of the Bara clan do not marry each other, though an Oraon may marry into his mother's clan (Roy 1915, p. 330). The clan passes from father to children, and Oraon clan names are now used as surnames. The recorded rule of the clan is not to eat the bar fruit split in two (p. 331). No family deity is tied to the Bara clan in the sources checked.

Presence Across Regions