Nat

‘Nat’ is derived from the Sanskrit word nata, which refers to a dancer. It is a community of people that have been traditionally associated with dance and acrobatic stage-shows, performed as a source of livelihood. Popularly, they are known as ‘rope dancers.’ According to E.H.A. Blunt, ‘this community included all those non-descript vagrants who wander about from country to country, making a living’ (quoted in Singh 2003: 334). Similarly, E.W. Crooke writes that ‘the problem of the origin and etymological affinities of the Nats is perhaps the most perplexing with the whole range of the ethnography of northern India…’ (quoted in Singh 1998: 2596). However, the community itself believes in a warrior ancestry, traceable to the Gour-Thakurs of Gujarat, descendants of the legendary Amar Singh Rathod. Crookes also ‘refers to them as a tribe of so-called dancers, acrobats and prostitutes who are found scattered all over the province’ (ibid.). H. A. Rose divides them into categories or classes: ‘those whose males only perform as acrobats, and those whose women, called “Kabutri” perform and prostitute themselves (Ibbetson and Rose 1970: 164). For J. F. Watson and J. W. Kaye, ‘Nuts correspond to the European gipsy tribes, and like them, have no settled home’ (1868: 110). Watson and Kaye describe them as ‘errant thieves and their principal occupations are conjuring, dancing and tricks of legerdemain’ (ibid.: 105). Dacoity was their ‘hereditary profession.’