Kullu Gotar

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.

Name and Origin

The clan is named after the tortoise, kulu, also called kachua. In the Dudh Kharia account of their nine clans an old Kharia and his nine sons survived a great flood in a cave, and each son met a different creature or thing at a pool; the son who saw a kulu, a tortoise, began the Kulu clan (Roy and Roy 1937, pp. 137-139). Roy and Roy record that until shortly before their time men of the Kulu clan would bow to a tortoise when they met one (p. 141), and Russell and Hira Lal (1916) describe the same custom among the Kharia of the Central Provinces.

Historical Journey

Roy and Roy give the Kulu or Kachua clan a place among the first Kharia settlers of Chota Nagpur: its first village was Panderia Sodapudul, it also founded Sosom, and later villages the clan claims to have founded include Kulga, Kotengsera and Majhikel (1937, pp. 139-140). In Soma Dungdung's account of the migration, the ancestors of the Kulu clan settled at Patura Kinirkela in Basia thana (pp. 36-37). Among the Dudh Kharia the Kulu is counted second of three senior clans, after the Dungdung and before the Samad or Kerketa, and the heads of tribal councils and parhas come from these three (pp. 131, 175). Among the Dhelki Kharia of Gangpur and Jashpur the tortoise clan is called Muru; it was counted highest of their clans, its men acted as heads of councils and as pandiha, the giver of water, at feasts, and in Jashpur it was the largest Dhelki clan, with 99 families (pp. 128, 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). Russell and Hira Lal (1916, p. 447) record that members of the Kulu sept would not kill a tortoise, folded their hands in greeting when they met one, and put a little dust from its track on their heads; Roy and Roy say such greeting had gone out of fashion by the 1930s (p. 141). 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 Kullu clan in the sources checked.

Presence Across Regions

Stories and Legends