Dauwa Ahirs are found in Bundelkhand.The Dauwa or wet nurse Ahirs are descended from the illegitimate offsprings of Bundela Rajput fathers by Ahir mothers who were employed in this capasity in their families.An Ahir woman kept by a Bundela was known as Pardwarin,or one coming from another house.This is not considered a disgraceful origin;though the Dauwa Ahirs are not recognised by the Ahirs properly, they form a seperate section of the caste,and Brahmin will take water from them,The children of such mothers stood in the raltion of foster- brothers to the Rajputs,whom their mothers had nursed.The giving of milk, in accordance with the common primitive belief in the virtue attaching to an action in itself,was held to constitute a relation of quasi-maternity between the nurse and infant, and hence of fraternity between her own children and her foster-children.
The former were called Dhai-Bhais or foster-brothers by the Rajputs;they were ofter given permanent grants of land and employed on confidential missions .The minister of the Rajas of Karauli was his Dauwa or foster-father,the husband of the nurse.Similarly, Colonel Tod says that the Dhai-bhai of the Raja of Boondi, commandant of the fortess of Tanagarh, was, like all his class,devotion personifed. Thus the positin of the foster-brother of a Rajput was an honourable one.
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