Raut (caste)

Raut or Thethwar is an Indian caste,[1] whose traditional occupation is herding.[2][3] They are sub-divisions of Ahir (Yadav) caste.[4][5]

The Rauts are mainly found in the Chhattisgarh state, and the neighbouring states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Traditionally, they were predominantly distributed in the districts of Durg, Raipur, Bastar, Nagpur and Bhandara.[6]

Culture

Traditionally, the Rauts were involved in herding and milking cattle.[7]

Raut Nacha is a traditional dance of the Raut community which is performed on Diwali. In this dance, the Rauts, wearing a special costume, sing and dance in a group with sticks in their hands in the pathways of the village. In the group, two or three persons wear the female costumes, which are called 'Pari'.[8]

The Raut men traditionally performed the local folk epic Candaini (or Chandaini) in a combination of dance and song. The epic tells the story of princess Chanda, who leaves her impotent husband and falls in love with a common man Veer Lorik. Both the characters are from the Raut caste, and the epic seems to have originated in this caste.[9] As late as 1980, the Candaini performers used to be primarily from the Raut caste, but now people from other communities also take part in the performances.[7]

References
  1. Arun Kumar Sharma (2000). Archaeo-anthropology of Chhattīsgaṛh. Sundeep Prakashan. ISBN 978-81-7574-096-9.
  2. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger (1996). Gender and Genre in the Folklore of Middle India. Cornell University Press. p. 141. ISBN 0-8014-8344-1.
  3. Lidia Guzy (2013). Marginalised Music: Music, Religion and Politics from Western Odisha/India. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 147. ISBN 978-3-643-90272-6. ...the Raut/Gour (the caste of herdsmen), the dominant caste in Chhattisgarh...
  4. Soni, Lok Nath (2000). The Cattle and the Stick: An Ethnographic Profile of the Raut of Chhattisgarh. ISBN 9788185579573.
  5. "Central List of OBCs". National Commission for Backward Classes.
  6. Kumar Suresh Singh; B. V. Bhanu (2004). People of India: Maharashtra, Volume 1. Popular Prakashan. Anthropological Survey of India. p. 1781. ISBN 9788179911006.
  7. Margaret H. Beissinger; Susanne Lindgren Wofford, eds. (1999). Epic traditions in the contemporary world: the poetics of community. University of California Press. p. 137.
  8. "Raut Nacha-Culture & Heritage". Durg District, Government of Chhattisgarh.
  9. Arjun Appadurai; Frank J. Korom; Margaret A. Mills (1994). Gender, genre, and power in South Asian expressive traditions. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 196. ISBN 9788120811782.

Bibliography
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