Chhattisgarhi
names 18objects 8ISO 639-3 hne
Spoken in Chhattisgarh (Dhuri caste, rice-parchers), the Baiga chak and the surrounding country — Mandla, Baihar, Kawardha, Dindori and Rewa, in what was then the Central Provinces.
folk 3 · tribal 15
See the Chhattisgarhi sky on the chart →
The sky in Chhattisgarhi
| Name | Object | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barhai | Figures with no secure modern identification | 'the carpenter' | tribal |
| Chirai; Barewa Tura | Figures with no secure modern identification | 'the bird'; 'the boy who roasted it for supper' | tribal |
| Dhanu; Ban | Figures with no secure modern identification | 'the bow'; 'the arrow' | tribal |
| Dhimar; Jhal; Machhri | Figures with no secure modern identification | 'the fisherman'; 'the net'; 'the fish' The Dhimar throws the Jhal to catch the Machhri. | tribal |
| Nangar | Figures with no secure modern identification | 'the plough' In the fuller story: Guru Mahadeo was ploughing when a phadki laughed at him and he threw her into the sky. The Nangar is Mahadeo's plough. | tribal |
| Tengra | Figures with no secure modern identification | 'the hoe' The hoe with which Mahadeo cleared his field. | tribal |
| phadki | Figures with no secure modern identification | a bird Once when Guru Mahadeo was ploughing, a phadki laughed at him and he threw her into the sky. There she is — and two eggs; but she is not sitting on them, for fear of Mahadeo. | tribal |
| the Tank (Elwin gives the English) | Figures with no secure modern identification | The star the Queen ran to drown herself in. | tribal |
| — | Meteors and shooting stars | Elwin collected five explanations in five districts: a jiv sent down by Bhagavan to live again on earth (Mandla), star excrement (Baihar), the spirit of a sinner burning (Rewa), a spirit coming down to earth to make a woman pregnant (Dindori), and a star that has come down to graze (Kawardha). | tribal |
| Kutela | Orion | 'the wooden rod used for levelling earth, cleaning hemp, or washing clothes' The stick Mahadeo threw at the phadki when she laughed at his ploughing. | tribal |
| [no vernacular form printed] 'the plough left by one of the Pandava brothers' | Orion | — | folk |
| Sap | Scorpius | 'the snake' Dharti Mata was digging white mud when her cloth fell down and she swung it back over her shoulder; there was a scorpion in the folds of the cloth, and it flew into the air and stuck there. | tribal |
| Gajvīthi (named elsewhere in the same work) | The Milky Way | the track of the elephant The path by which the elephant of the heavens passes from south to north to feed on young bamboo shoots, of which he is very fond. | folk |
| — | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | A bed on which a corpse is carried out. When they bring it out it is night; when they put it back it is day. The Baiga smash the bed with their axes when they carry a corpse, which is why bits of the bed are scattered all over the sky. | tribal |
| — | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | In Baihar: a King and Queen quarrelled and the Queen ran to kill herself in the star called the Tank; the Kotwar ran to stop her; the King jumped out of bed so violently that one leg of the bed broke — which is why you always see one leg in the wrong place. In Mandla the same story is told with a Bhoi and Bhoin, a Gond man and woman, as hero and heroine. | tribal |
| [no vernacular form printed] 'a cot with three thieves tied to it' | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | The thieves came to steal the cot, which belonged to an old woman, but God caught them and tied them down there for ever. | folk |
| Chowkidar | Venus | 'the watchman' At midnight the night-watchman; at dawn the cock-crow watchman. | tribal |
| Machhritarai | Venus as evening star | 'the Fish Star' As long as it is in the sky the fish come to feed, and afterwards they sleep; the Dhimar, the fishing caste, only fish till then. | tribal |