Dungdung Gotar
Kharia
At a glance
- Called a
- Gotar
- Community
- Kharia
- Found in
- Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha
About
Dungdung is a clan of the Kharia of Chota Nagpur, and one of the nine original clans of the Dudh Kharia. Its totem is the eel, and it is also called Aind; among the Dhelki Kharia the clan is called Hansda. Roy and Roy (1937) record the Dudh Kharia counting it first of their three senior clans, under the title Raja. Roy (1912) also names a Dungdung killi among the twenty-one original clans of the Munda. It is not a Vedic gotra.
What “Gotar” means for the Kharia
Roy and Roy (1937) write the Kharia clan as gotra or gotar: a totemic clan passed from father to children whose members count themselves brothers, so that marriage within it is condemned as gotra badh, 'clan-murder'. A woman joins her husband's clan at marriage. The Hill Kharia of Mayurbhanj use the Munda word khili. It is not a Vedic gotra.
Every gotar of the Kharia, with how the clan system works: the Kharia page.
Name and Origin
The clan is named after the eel, dungdung, also called aind. In the Dudh Kharia account of their nine clans, as Roy and Roy (1937, pp. 137-139) had it from a Kharia teacher, Nuas Kerketta, an old Kharia and his nine sons survived a great flood in a cave. The sons killed a deer, shared it in nine parts and went off separately to find water; at the pool each met a different creature or thing, and his share of venison turned into it. The son who saw a dungdung, the eel, began the Dungdung clan. Roy and Roy call such stories fanciful (p. 136).
Historical Journey
Roy and Roy recorded the clan's own memory of its arrival in Chota Nagpur. Soma Dungdung of Birkera village in Simdega thana told them that his ancestors came from Ruidas Patna by way of Kharia-ghat and Murgu, and that the ancestors of the Dungdung and Kerketta clans halted at Kumharia in Basia thana; his own forebears went on with a pack-bullock loaded with their wealth until, at Siru Konrokera in Kolebira thana, the bullock would go no further and they bought the land there (1937, pp. 36-37). Another account gives the clan's first village as Bongloe, from which its men are called Bongloe-wars, and says it also founded Sedem (pp. 139-140). Among the Dudh Kharia the Dungdung is counted first of three senior clans, with the Kulu and the Samad or Kerketa; the heads of tribal councils and parhas are drawn from these three (pp. 131, 175). Among the Dhelki Kharia the clan, called Hansda, had at least three sub-divisions, Masoda, Dhurro and Kaserda Hansda, and in the former Jashpur State it counted 75 families (p. 130).
How the Gotar Is Kept
A Kharia may not eat, use, kill or injure his clan's totem (Roy and Roy 1937, p. 142). The clan passes from father to children, and a married woman takes up her husband's clan and its rules (Roy and Roy 1937, p. 143). Marriage within the clan is condemned as gotra badh, 'clan-murder', and members of one sub-clan may not marry members of another sub-clan of the same parent clan (pp. 127, 142). No family deity is tied to the Dungdung clan in the sources checked.
Presence Across Regions
Simdega, Kolebira and Basia, Jharkhand
Tribal - Kharia
The clan's migration tradition, told to Roy and Roy by Soma Dungdung of Birkera, names Kumharia in Basia thana and Siru Konrokera in Kolebira thana.
Jashpur, Chhattisgarh
Tribal - Kharia
As the Hansda clan of the Dhelki Kharia, 75 families in the former Jashpur State (Roy and Roy 1937, p. 130).
Ranchi district, Jharkhand
Tribal - Munda
Roy (1912, pp. 71 n., 335) names a Dungdung killi among the twenty-one original Munda killis, founded in legend by Laimbo Munda.
Stories and Legends
The nine sons at the pool
In a Dudh Kharia legend recorded by Roy and Roy (1937), a flood swept the land and an old Kharia and his nine sons survived in a cave. Later the sons killed a deer, cut it into nine shares and went separate ways to look for water. At a pool each met something different: a kerketa bird, an eel, a tortoise, a topo bird, salt, paddy, a tetetehoin bird, a tiger, a block of rock. When they opened their bundles at home, each son's share of venison had turned into the thing he had seen, and the father ruled that each son's line should take it as its clan name.
The bullock that would not move
Soma Dungdung of Birkera told Roy and Roy how his forebears came to their land. After the clan halted at Kumharia, his own ancestors went on, leading a pack-bullock loaded with the wealth they had brought. At Siru Konrokera the bullock refused to go any further, so they bought the place with that wealth and settled there.