Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Jangams, or Moveable that is Incarnate Lings, the priests of the Lingayats, are returned as numbering 917 and as found over the whole district. They are said to have come from the Kanarese districts in search of work about a hundred and fifty years ago. The names in ordinary use among men are China, Ramchandra, and Vitthal; and among women, Gaya, Jankibai, Kashibai, and Umabai. Their surnames are Brahmani, Patavekar, and Shivurkar, and their family gods Ekorama Pandita, Marul, Revajsiddha, and Siddha Pinditaratya. They are divided into priests and laymen, who eat together and sometimes intermarry. Their family stocks are Bhringi, Nandi, Matsarup, Virabhadra, and Vrishabh. Persons bearing the same surnames cannot intermarry. Their home tongue is a corrupt Marathi. As a class they are dark, strong, and muscular. The laymen shave the head except the top-knot and the face except the moustache and whiskers. The priests let the beard grow and wear no top-knot. They live in two-storeyed houses of the better class with brick walls and tiled roofs and their house goods include boxes, carpets, and metal vessels. They own cattle but keep no servants. They are moderate eaters and good cooks, and are fond of hot dishes. Their staple food is rice, pulse-sauce, and bread. They regularly bathe before they take their morning meals and worship Shiv's emblem the ling with flowers and some of the food they are going to eat. They do not use animal food or liquor but they have no objection to smoke hemp-flower or ganja. The women tie their hair in a knot at the back of the head, but do not wear false hair. Both men and women wear clean and neat clothes and are fond of gay colours. The men dress in a waistcloth, a shouldercloth, a coat, and a Deccan Brahman turban, with a pair of shoes or sandals. The women dress in a long Maratha robe and a full-backed bodice with short sleeves. Both men and women have a store of clothes for special ceremonies, and of ornaments made in Deccan fashion. As a class Jangams are clean, orderly, lazy, thrifty, and honest, but not hospitable. Their principal and hereditary calling is begging alms from lay Lingayats. They belong to the Shaiv sect. Their chief holidays are Shimga in March, Akshatritiya in May, and Dipvali in October. They keep Mondays and ekadashis or lunar elevenths, and all fast on Mahashivratra or Shiv's Great Night in February. They have their own religious teacher who lives in the Karnatak and occasionally visits villages where Jangams are settled. They say they do not believe in witchcraft or in the power of evil spirits. Early marriage and polygamy are allowed; polyandry is unknown. As soon as a child is born word is sent to the priest, who rubs the mother's brow with cowdung ashes and invests the child with the ling either at once or on the fifth or thirteenth day. In investing a child the priest touches its neck with the ling and gives the ling to the mother. The mother's impurity lasts five days. At the end of the fifth day, as among Brahmanical Hindus, an embossed image of Satvai is worshipped. The child is named on the twelfth. The diksha or initiation ceremony of the child, whether male or female, is performed between twelve and fifteen. The teacher is asked and seated on a low stool, his hands and feet are washed, and part of the water is sipped by the novice. Sweetmeats and bel leaves are offered to the teacher who whispers a verse or mantra in the novice's ear and is treated to a sumptuous dinner with the friends and relations of the houseowner. 

Boys are married between eight and thirty and girls between five and twelve. The marriage and other rites performed by the Poona Jangams are partly Brahmanical and partly Lingayat. They do not differ much from those in use among Belgaum Jangams. Their religious peculiarities seem to tone down in districts where the bulk of the people are attached to Brahmanism. Among Bijapur Jangams, women in their monthly sickness are not considered impure; in Poona they sit apart for three days. All Soul's fortnight in Bhadrapad or September is not observed in Bijapur; it is observed in Poona. They have a caste council and settle social disputes at meetings of adult castemen. They send their children to school, take to new pursuits, and show a tendency to rise in wealth and position.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Satara District Gazetteer (1884))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Joha'ris, or Jewellers, are returned as numbering 120 and as found in large towns. They are said to have come from Marwar about seventy years ago for purposes of trade. They are like Upper India Pardeshis and do not differ from them in dwelling, food, drink, or dress. They are strict vegetarians and take no liquor, though some eat opium and drink hemp-water or bhang. The men have taken to the Maratha dress but the women keep to the full northern petticoat and open-backed bodice. As a class they are clean, hardworking, and thrifty. They are hereditary beggars who deal in old lace and ribands, and profess a knowledge of physic. They live from hand to mouth. The women mind the house and offer metal pots in exchange for old clothes or lace, hawking them from door to door. 

They are religious, worshipping family gods and Krishna, Maruti, Ramchandra, and tulas or the sweet basil plant, and keeping the usual Brahmanic fasts and feasts. They have a great reverence for Ram the seventh incarnation of Vishnu and the hero of the Ramayan. Their great holidays are Ram-navami in April, Gokul-ashtami in August, and Navaratra in September. They make pilgrimages to Oudh, Gokarn, and Gokul-Vrindavan. They profess not to believe in witchcraft or in evil spirits. Early marriage and polygamy are allowed, widow marriage is forbidden, and polyandry is unknown. On the third and fifth days after the birth of a child the goddess Satvai is worshipped, and the child is named on the twelfth day. The mother's impurity lasts twelve days. Boys are girt with the sacred thread between five and eight and married between eight and thirty; girls are married between five and twelve. A Pardeshi Brahman priest officiates at the marriage and performs the same rites as among Pardeshi Brahmans. They burn their dead and mourn ten days. The crows are fed on the enth and on the eleventh the kinsmen of the dead purify themselves by sipping the five cow-gifts. On the twelfth the caste-people are asked to dine in the name of the dead and a rice ball is offered to the dead. Their mind-rites are the same as those in use among Pardeshi Brahmans. 

They mark the death-day by a mind-rite or shraddh. They are bound together by a strong caste feeling and settle social disputes at meetings of adult castemen. They send their children to school and take to new pursuits. They are said to be still burdened by debts incurred during the 1876-77 famine.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

JOGIS are of many kinds, some foretell future events and others act as showmen to deformed animals. Persons of all castes enter the order, some marrying and others remaining single.

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Kaika'dis are returned as numbering 1105 and as found over the whole district. They say they are from Telangan, and came into the district about two hundred years ago. They are divided into Marathas and Kuchekaris who do not eat together or intermarry. The surnames of the Marathas are Jadhav, Malujya, Mane, and Sapatsar. The names in common use among men are Avadyaba, Bhiva, Dhaguba, Hamaji, Kaluba, and Shahajiba; and among women Gunai, Kalu, Pasu, Radhabai, and Santu. They are dark and weak. The men wear the top-knot, moustache, whiskers, and sometimes the beard. Their home speech is a mixture of Kanarese and Telugu and out of doors they speak a corrupt Marathi. Their houses are poor with walls of mud and thatched or tiled roofs. They are neither clean nor neat, and contain a box, a cot, a cradle, a blanket or two, and earthen vessels. They keep donkeys, cattle, and fowls, and sometimes a servant. They are great eaters and are fond of pungent dishes and of onions. Their staple food is millet, split pulse, and vegetables. They give marriage and death feasts at which the chief dishes are sugar-cakes and molasses called gulavni. They eat fish and the flesh of the sheep, goat, deer, hare, and wild hog, and of wild and tame fowls. They drink liquor to excess, and smoke tobacco and hemp. The men dress in a loincloth or short trousers reaching to the knee, a coarse waistcoat, and Maratha turban, and the women in a bodice and robe whose skirt they do not draw back between their feet. They braid their hair and leave it hanging down the back. The men's ornaments are the gold earrings called balis and kudkyas and finger rings together valued at �8 to �6 (Rs.30-60). The women's ornaments are the nose-ring called nath, the necklace called mani, the silver bracelets called gots, and the queensmetal toelets called jodvis, together worth �1 to �2 (Rs.10-20).

They have a bad name as thieves and are always under the eye of the police. They make bamboo baskets of many sizes for storing grain and other articles, bird's cages, and children's toys; they also show snakes. The Kuchekaris make straw brushes or kuche and snares fur catching game. They carry sand, earth, bricks, tiles, and stones on their donkeys, remove sweepings and filth, and work as husbandmen and labourers. They earn 10s. to �1 (Rs. 5-10) a month. Their women and children help them in their work. They are poor, but have credit enough to borrow up to �5 (Rs. 50) at 2� to 5 per cent a month. They consider themselves equal to Marathas. They worship the usual Brahmanic gods and goddesses and keep the regular fasts and feasts. Their family gods are Khandoba of Jejuri, Bahiroba of Sonari near Sholapur, and Bhavani of Tuljapur. Their priests are Deshasth Brahmans who officiate at their houses during marriages and deaths. They make pilgrimages to Alandi, Jejuri, Sonari, Tuljapur, and Pandharpur. They have religious teachers or gurus who are generally Gosavis whose advice or updesh they take. They believe in sorcery, witchcraft, soothsaying, omens, and lucky and unlucky days, and consult oracles. They worship the goddess Satvai on the fifth day after the birth of a child, when they offer a goat and feast, the caste. They name their children on the twelfth day.

They marry their girls when they are sixteen, and their boys at any age up to thirty. Their marriage guardian or devak is a mango twig which they tie along with an axe and a piece of bread to a post of the marriage porch. They rub the boy and girl with turmeric at their houses five days before the marriage. On the marriage day the boy goes in procession on horseback and sits on the border of the girl's village. His brother goes ahead to the girl's house and tells her people that the boy has come. He is presented with clothes and the girl's relations accompany him back to his brother, jesting and knocking off his turban on the way. After meeting the boy at the temple the girl's father leads him and his party to his house. When he comes near the door of the marriage porch, a cocoanut is waved round his head and dashed on the ground. The boy and girl are made to stand in the marriage hall on two bamboo baskets face to face and a cloth is held between them. The priest, who is generally a Deshasth Brahman, repeats marriage verses, and at the end throws grain of rice over their heads and they are married. They are seated on the altar, and a thread is wound five times round their bodies. It is taken off, rubbed with turmeric powder, and cut in two equal parts one of which is bound round the boy's right wrist and the other round the girl's left wrist. A sacrificial fire is kindled and fed with grains of rice and butter. Marriage ornaments are tied to the brows of the boy and girl, the skirts of their garments are knotted together, and the girl's father fastening the knot and looking towards the boy, says ' All this time she was my darling now she is yours.' A feast is held and the boy goes with the girl to his house on horse back accompanied by male and female relations and music. Before they enter the house bread and water are waved round their heads. The boy and girl and other children dine, the chief dish being rice and milk. Their wrist strings are unloosed and the marriage ceremony is over. When a girl comes of age she is seated by herself for five days and sweet dishes are prepared for her. She is presented with a new robe and bodice and her lap is filled with five turmeric roots, lemons, betelnuts, and dry dates.

They either bury or burn their dead, and mourn five, nine, or twelve days. On their return from the funeral, the chief mourner asks the four corpse-bearers to dine. Next day they go to the burning ground, remove the ashes, place two earthen jars filled with water on the spot, and return home. On the thirteenth they kill a goat and feast the caste. They do not observe death-days, and perform no mind-rite or shraddh. They have a caste council, and settle social disputes at meetings of the castemen. Breaches of caste rules are punished by fines varying from 3d. to 10s. (Rs.�-5) the amount being spent on drink or on betelnut and leaves. They do not send their boys to school and are very poor.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Satara District Gazetteer (1884))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Kachis are returned as numbering 708 and as found in Khed, Sirur, Haveli, Bhimthadi, and Poona. They say their forefathers came from Gwalior and Aurangabad; when and why they do not know. They are divided into Marwari and Pardeshi Kachis. The following details apply to Marwari Kachis who are divided into Kalao-kachis, Dhimar-kachis, Karbhoi-kachis, and Bundele-kachis, who do not eat together or intermarry. Their surnames are Bundele, Elchya, Gwaliari, and Katkariya, and persons bearing the same surname do not intermarry. The names in common use among men are Dhanu, Jairam, Tukaram, and Tuljaram; and among women, Ganga, Jamna, and Kundi. The Kachis are strong and well made. The men wear the top-knot but neither whiskers nor beards, and their home tongue is Hindustani. Most of them live in houses of the better sort, one or two storeys high, with walls of brick and tiled roofs. They eat fish and the flesh of goats, sheep, and domestic fowls, and drink liquor. Their staple food is millet, wheat, split pulse, and rice. They generally eat in the evening. A family of five spends �1 to �1 10s. (Rs. 10-15) a month on food. The men wear a waistcoat, a coat, a waistcloth, a shouldercloth, a Maratha turban, and Brahman shoes; the women wear a bodice with a back and either the full Maratha robe passing the skirt back between, the feet and tucking it into the waist behind, or a petticoat and short upper robe the end of which they draw over the head. They are hardworking, thrifty, sober, and orderly. 

They are fruit-sellers, taking fruit; gardens on hire from their owners at �7 10s. to �20 (Rs. 75-200). They worship the usual Brahmanic gods and goddesses and keep the regular fasts and feasts. Of these the chief are Holi in March Akshadtritiya in May, and Rakhipornima in August. Their priests are Pardeshi Brahmans whom they treat with great respect. Their customs are like those of Marathas. A birth costs �1 to �2 (Rs. 10- 20), and naming 4s. to �1 (Rs. 2-10). Their guardian or devak is an axe or kurhad and the panchpallavs or five leaves of the Ficus religiosa pipal, F. glomerata umbar, F. indica vad, F. infectoria nandruk, and the mango, which they tie to a post of the marriage hall at both the boy's and the girl's houses. They marry their children seated on carpets near each other, the girl to the left of the boy. When the marriage texts are finished the hems of their garments are tied together, and they make a bow before the house gods. The boy and girl are offered sugared milk and taken in procession on horseback to the boy's parents' house. Feasts are exchanged and the marriage is over. The ceremony costs the boy's father �1 to �15 (Rs.10-150), and the girl's father �1 to �2 (Rs. 10-20). They either bury or burn their dead and death costs them �1 to �2 (Rs. 10- 20). They have no headman and settle social disputes at meetings of castemen. The offending person is fined 2s. to 4s. (Rs. 1-2), and when the amount is recovered it is generally spent on drink. They send their boys to school and as a rule are in easy circumstances.

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Kunbis are returned as numbering nearly 400,000 and as found over the whole district. They seem to have a strong ear or pre-Aryan element. The term Kunbi includes two main classes Kunbis and Marathas, between whom it is difficult to draw a line. Marathas and Kunbis eat together and intermarry and do not differ in appearance, religion, or customs. Still these two names seem to represent, though in both cases with much intermixture the two main sources from which the bulk of the present peasantry are sprung. The Kunbis represent those in whom the local or early, and the Marathas those in whom the northern or later element is strongest. The Poona Kunbis, not content with calling themselves Marathas, go so far as to call themselves Kshatriyas and wear the sacred thread. [The Marathi accounts seem to show that the great Shivaji (1627-1680) never were the sacred thread or yajnopavit till he was enthroned and raised to the rank Kshatriya. See Raygad in Bombay Gazetteer, XI. 369, 370 and note 1.] They include a traditional total of ninety-six clans which are said to be sprung from the rulers of fifty-six countries who are the descendants of Vikram of Ujain whose traditional date is B.C. 56, Shalivahan of Paithan whose traditional date is A.D. 78, and Bhojraja of Malva whose traditional date is about the end of the tenth century. According to the traditional accounts, the Bhosles to whom Shivaji belonged are the descendants of Bhojraja; the descendants of Vikram are called Sukarrajas; and those of Shalivahan Rajakumars. All claim to belong to one of the four branches or vanshas of the Kshatriyas, Som-vansha or the Moon branch, Surya-vansha or the Sun branch, Sesh-vansha or the Snake branch, and Yadu-vansha or the Shepherd branch. The names of some of the families of these four branches are: Of the Sun branch, Aparadhe, bichare, Bhosle, Bhovar, Dalvi, Dharrao, Hendhe, Gavse, Ghad, Ghadke, Ghag, Ghorpade, Joshi, Kadam, Malap, Mulik, Nakase, Nalavde, Nayak, Palve, Pardhe, Patak, Patade, Povar, Rane, Rao, Raul, Sagvan, Salve, Sankpal, Shinde, Shisode, Shitole, Surne, and Vaghmare; of the Moon branch, Bhate, Chavhan, Dabhade, Dalpate, Darbare, Gaikavad, Ghadam, Ghadke, Insulkar, Jagtap, Kalpate, Kamble, Kambre, Kapvate, Kathe, Kesarkar, Man, Mhatre, Mohite, More, Nikam, Nimbalkar, Patankar, Randive, Savant, Shelar, and Varange; of the Snake branch, Bagve, Bhoir, Bogle, chirphule, Dhulap, Dhumal, Dhure, Divte, Gavli, Jamble, Kasle, Lendpoval, Mhadik, Mokari, Namjade, Parabh, Sangal, Tavde, and Thakur; and of the Shepherd branch, Bagvan, Bulke, Dhumak, Gavand, Gharat, Ghavad, Ghogale, Jadhav, Jagle, Jagpal, Jalindhare, Jare, Jasvant, Mokal, Malpovar, Patel, Phakade, Shelke, Shirgone, Shirke, Tambte, Tovar, and Yadav.

Each Kunbi has three personal names, a priestly name a house name and a pot name. The priestly name, which is known as the ras nav or star name, depends on the position of the stars at the time of the child's birth. The priestly names generally chosen for boys are Amritya, Ankorsa, Babaji, Dungarji, and Ravji, and for girls Saku, Bhagu, and Chimi. The house name is chosen by the elders of the house; the commonest are for men Khandu, Pandu, Raghu, and Vithu; and for women Kashi, Parvati, Rama, and Savitri. The pet or avadate name is generally given by the child's parents or the mother's relations. The commonest pet names for boys are Appa, Babu, Bala, and Nana; and for girls Abbi, Bai, Kaki, and Tai. His pet name sometimes clings to the bearer through life. When a boy grows up ji or rao is added to the name, and to girls' names di or bai. In addition to his personal name a man bears his father's name and surname, and a woman her husband's name and surname, thus Lakshman son of Khandu Povar, and Bhagirthi wife of Shiva Bhosla.

As a class Kunbis are dark, of middle stature, with round faces, straight nose, thickish lips, and high bare and protruding cheekbones. They are strong, hardy, enduring, and muscular. The Kunbi women, like their husbands, are strong and hardy, but the veiled or gosha Maratha women are generally weak. Great numbers die in infancy. Those who survive are generally long-lived, few dying before the age of sixty or seventy. In the hilly west the Kunbis are generally weaker, thinner, and fairer than the Kunbis of eastern Poona. A Kunbi or Maratha girl is slender, dark-skinned, and generally graceful. She becomes a mother at fifteen or seventeen and is past her prime at twenty. Boys are generally active and clever, but at an early age the men grow dull and dreamy. [In 1819 Dr. Coates (Trans. Bombay Lit. Soc. III. 203) described the Poona Kunbis as rather low in stature and lean, the hands feet and bones small, the muscles prominent though not bulky, the limbs often well-shaped. Twenty men in a hundred averaged five feet four inches in height and 7 stone 10� in weight. Five feet six inches was tall and eight and a half stone was heavy. The black straight hair was shorn except the mustache and the top-knot. The skin was of varying shades of bronze sometimes nearly black. The face was more round than oval, the brow short and retiring, the cheek-bones high, the eyes full and black, the nose straight and prominent, the teeth not remarkably good and stained black or red. The expression was sedate and good with little quickness and no ferocity. Children were often quick and and men of forty dull. With few exceptions the women had no pretensions to beauty. Still when young the round plump face, smooth clean skin, fine long black hair, large sparkling eyes, and sprightly gait made them interesting. Their bloom soon passed. They were old at eighteen and wrinkled and ugly at twenty-five (Ditto, 232). About half died as children (Ditto, 244). The survivors were long-lived, through as no registers were kept, the ages were doubtful. Out of 164 the twenty-five oldest men in the village of Loni were said to average about 76� years and of 198 the twenty-five oldest women were said to average 72� years.] The men shave the head except the mustache and in a few cases the whiskers. They speak Marathi both at home and abroad. Though it is surrounded by heaps of refuse, the inside of a Kunbi's house is always clean and tidy. The floors and walls are fresh-cowdunged every fortnight and the front veranda is always swept clean. They often keep their cattle under the same roof as themselves either with or without any partition, or under a shed attached to the house. Besides their field tools, their household goods include earth and metal water-pots and plates, an iron or brass hanging lamp a frying pan, cooking pots, a grindstone and pin, a handmill, a mortar and pestles, baskets, network utensils, and a bedstead, the whole not varying in value more than from �1 10s. to �3 (Rs. 15-30) [Of the Poona Kunbi's house-gear in 1819, Dr. Coates (Trans. Bom. Lit. Soe. III. 209-210) gives the following details: A stone handmill worth Re. 1, two iron-tipped wooden pestles worth Re. �, a large copper water-vessel worth Rs. 10, two three small drinking copper vessels worth Rs. 2 each, two or three round shallow eating dishes of copper or bell-metal each worth Rs. 1� to Re. 1, an iron griddle worth Re. � a frying pan worth Re. 1, four or five glazed and twenty to thirty unglazed earthen pots together worth Rs. 2� to Rs.3, a large wooden kneading dish, several baskets, two iron cup-lamps, two rude couches each worth Re. 1, or a whole average value about Rs. 40. A rich Kunbi has more copper vessels, a copper lamp instead of an iron lamp, and his couches are laced with tape instead of with rope.] An ordinary house with room for a family of five does not cost more than �15 (Rs. 150) to build or 8s. to 12s. (Rs.4-6) a year to rent. The monthly keep of a milch cow comes to about 6s. (Rs. 3) and the keep of a she-buffalo varies from 8s. to 10s. (Rs. 4-5).

Kunbis are moderate eaters and are proverbially fond of pepper and other hot spices. Besides grain pulse fruits spices oils curds and butter, they eat fish fowls eggs sheep goats hare deer and wild hog, and besides water and milk they drink liquor. They do not eat flesh except on marriage and other family festivals and on a few leading holidays such as Dasara in October and Diwali in November. They sometimes vow to offer an animal to a god, and, after offering its life to the god, eat its flesh. They generally drink liquor about sunset, an hour or so before the evening meal. The use of liquor is not forbidden, but drinking is considered disreputable and is rare among men and almost unknown among women. Kunbis who indulge in liquor drink as much as possible in private and by stealth. Besides liquor their only stimulant or narcotic is tobacco. It is chiefly smoked, but is also chewed by men and sometimes by women. Most grown men and women and many youths of ten and over when hardworked depend much on their tobacco pipe. Their usual holiday fare is vermicelli or shevaya eaten with milk and molasses. Their every-day fare consists of millet, rice, vegetables and fruit cut in pieces, split pulse, and alan that is gram flour boiled with cumin coriander pepper salt turmeric and onions. They take three meals a day. They generally breakfast on bread with some vegetable relish or a raw onion. About noon their wives bring their dinner of bread and vegetables and either fish, flesh, or split pulse. Their supper, of bread vegetables milk or some liquid preparation of pulse, is eaten about eight. The ordinary daily food of a husbandman, his wife, two children, and a dependant costs about 3d. (2 as.), but landholders are not actually put to this expense as all these articles, except tobacco, are the produce of their own fields.

Kunbis as a class are neat and clean in their dress. They are seldom rich enough to indulge their taste, but the well-to-do are fond of gay clothes, the men wearing generally red or white turbans and the women red robes. Indoors the Kunbi wears a handkerchief passed between his legs, the ends fastened behind to a waistcord. Out of doors he rolls a loincloth round his waist, covers his body with a waistcloth or armless jacket, and wears a turban on his head and sandals on his feet. In cold and wet weather he throws a coarse blanket over his shoulders or ties it in a hood and draws it over his head. Besides as articles of dress, the blanket and waistcloth are used as sleeping mats and as bags for carrying clothes and garden-stuff. The woman's dress is the full Maratha robe or sadi and the short-sleeved bodice reaching to the waist and covering both the back and chest, the ends being tied in front. [The Kunbi's dress seems to have improved since 1819. Dr. Coates wrote (Trans. Born. Lit. Soc. III. 208): A Kunbi in his every-day attire is a most wretched-looking being, and when first seen by a European can excite only feelings of pity and disgust. In the warm weather at home or afield he is naked except a dirty rag round the loins. He sometimes has a pair of short coarse cotton drawers and a dirty bandage round his lead. In cold and rainy weather he wears a coarse black blanket round his shoulders or over his head. His holiday dress is a turban white red or green sometimes with a flower and a smelling sprig. On the body a coarse white frock falls to the knee, a fine white cotton waistcloth or shouldercloth, coarse drawers, and shoes or sandals, The yearly cost was about Rs. 15� then equal to about �18. Of the Kunbi women's dress Dr. Coates (Ditto, 232-233) says: The dress is a robe or sadi twenty-four feet long by three wide. Three or four feet of one end are thrown over the head and shoulder, in turn or two is passed round the loins, and the rest is puckered up and tucked in a bundle in front and the ends passed between the legs and fixed behind. The other Article of dress is the bodice or choli, a short jacket with sleeves to the elbow covering about half the body and tied by the corners in front over the bosom.] The man's ornaments for the ear are a pair of gold rajkadya valued at 4s. to 8s. (Rs. 2- 4), a gold bhikbali valued at 10s. to 16s. (Rs. 5-8), or a pair of gold chaukada's valued at �1 12s. to �4 (Rs. 16-40); for the wrist a kade valued at 12s. to �1 (Rs. 6-10), a peti valued at 2s. to 4s. (Rs. 1-2), or a pair of kadis valued at �1 to �4 (Rs. 10-40); for the fingers rings or angthya of silver valued at 2s. to 6s. (Rs. 1-3); and for the waist a silver girdle or kargota valued at �2 to �6 (Rs. 20-60). The woman's ornaments for the ear are bugdya worth 6s. to 10s. (Rs. 3-5), balya of brass worth 1�d. to 3d. (1-2 as.) and rajkadya worth 4s. to 10s. (Rs. 2-5); for the nose a gold moti worth 10s. to 16s. (Rs. 5-8); for the neck a silver sari worth 6s. to 12s. (Rs. 3-6), a gold gathle worth �2 to �4 (Rs. 20-40), one to ten gold putlyas worth 8s. to �4. (Rs. 4-40), the mangalsutra or lucky necklace of glass beads worth 4s. to 6s. (Rs. 2-3), and a garsoli of glass beads worth 1�d. to 3d. (1-2 as.) ; for the wrists glass bangles worth 1�d. to 3d. (1-2 as). glass chudas worth �d. (� anna), a got worth 6d. (4 as.), a vale if of silver worth 4s. to 12s. (Rs. 2-6) and if of lead worth 4�d. to 7� d. (3-5 as.), kakan, if of lead worth 4�d. to 7� d. (3-5 as.), a silver vela worth �1 to �4 (Rs. 10-40), and vakya worth 10s. to 12s. (Rs. 5-6).

Kunbis are hardworking, temperate, hospitable, fond of their children, and kind to strangers. At the same time they are cruel in revenge and seldom scruple to cheat either Government or their creditors. Among themselves disputes about land often split a village into factions and give rise to quarrels and fights. Otherwise in dealing with each other they are honest, just, and straight for ward. They are frugal in every-day life, but spend large sums on marriage and other feasts. The women are generally chaste and fond mothers, and, except when they fall out with each other, they are modest in look and in words. They help their husbands in the field, and generally have the upper hand in the house. They have a private purse which they fill from the wages they earn and empty on ornaments and sometimes on dinners to neighbour women. [Of the character of the Deccan Kunbi Dr. Coates (Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. III 204) wrote: They are temperate and hardworking, hardy and enduring. Scarely any can read or write. Though not particularly sharp they are minutely informed of everything relating to their calling; they are fond of talk and many have a fair knowledge of the history of their country. They are better informed and more orderly than the lower classes of Englishmen. They are wild-mannered, forgiving, seldom violent or cruel. They are indulgent to their women and most attached to their children. Except at marriages when they are lavish and profuse, they are frugal inclining to parsimony. As far as poverty allows they are hospitable. Among them no mannerly stranger will want a meal. They are just in dealing with each other, but unscrupulous in overreaching outsiders and Government. Theft is scarely known and the voice of the community attaches weight to a virtuous life. They owe their vices to their Government, cunning, cheating, and lying. Their timidity makes them prefer stratagem to force. Still when roused they are not without courage and are by no means contemptible enemies. Love intrigues sometimes take place among the young, but as a rule the women are remarkably chaste. A first offence is punished by a beating; a second offence, especially if the man is a Musalman or a Mhar, may lead to the woman being put out of caste (Ditto, 231-232). Women are well treated, have much freedom, and often rule the house. Each has a private purse supplied by the wages of extra labour and by presents from kinspeople and sometimes from the husband. She spends her money on ornaments either for herself or her child, in feasts to her neighbours, or on sweetmeats. Some of the less scrupulous recruit an empty purse by pilferring grain (Ditto, 230-231).]

Most Kunbis earn their living by tilling the ground and are help in their work by their women. They have not recovered what they lost in the 1876 and 1877 famine. Their credit is small; many have given up husbandry and taken to be messengers, constables, grooms, and day-labourers. [The daily round of the Poona Kunbi's life has changed little since 1819 when Dr. Coates (Trans. Bom. Lit Soc. III. 228-232) wrote: The Kunbi rises at cockcrow, washes his hands feet and face, repeats the names of some of his gods, and perhaps takes a whiff of his pipe or a quid of tobacco. He is ready to begin his labour. He loosens his oxen and drives them slowly afield letting them graze as they go. His breakfast is with him in a dirty cloth or it is sent after him by one of his children; it is a cake and some of the cookery of the day before, or an onion or two and some relish. He gets to his field between seven and eight, works for an hour or two, and squats to his breakfast without loosing his cattle. He is at work again in a quarter of an hour and works on till twelve when his wife brings his dinner. He unyokes his oxen, drives them to drink, and lets them graze or gives them straw. He dines under some tree near a well or stream, his wife waiting on him. If others are near they come and talk and sleep for half an hour each on his blanket or cloth. The wife eats what the husband has left. He is at work again by two or half-past two, and works on till sunset when he moves slowly home, ties up find feeds his oxen, and either washes in a stream or gets his wife to douse him with hot water. After washing, or on holidays oiling with sandal oil, he prays before the house gods or visits the village temple. He then sups with the rest of the men of the family. Between supper and bed at nine or ten is his play-time. He fondles and plays with his children, visits his neighbours, talks about the crops and the village, asks after strangers, or seeks news from any one who has been in Poona. In the two or three months between January and April, when field work is light, he takes his meals at home and joins with other villagers in loafing in the shade and chatting, or he visits friends in neighbouring villages, or he goes on pilgrimage. During the busy season the Kunbi's wife rises between four and five, grinds the day's grain, sweeps the house, and clears out ashes and dung from the cow-house, burying part in the manure-pit and making fire-cakes of the rest. She fills the water jars with fresh water, cooks till about ten, and then with a child or perhaps two children starts for the field with her husband's dinner on her head in a basket. She weeds or reaps till noon, waits on her husband, and dines. After a short rest she is again at work and works till evening carrying home a bundle of grass. She makes ready and eats supper and goes to rest between nine and ten.]

Kunbis cannot tell whether they are Smarts or Bhagvats. They worship all Brahmanic gods and goddesses, but their chief objects of worship are Bhairav, Bhavani, Biroba, Jakhai, Janai, Jokhai, Kalkai, Khandoba, Maruti, Metisai, Mhasoba, Mukai, Navlai, Phringai, Satvai, Takai, Vaghoba, and Vetal, whom they greatly fear and whose images or taks they keep in their houses. BHAIRAV is the usual village guardian. He has two forms, Kal Bhairav and Bal Bhairav. Kal Bhairav is shown as a standing man with two hands, an hourglass-shaped drum or damaru in his right hand, and a trident in his left. He is encircled by a serpent. Bal Bhairav lives in an unhewn stone covered with redlead or shendur mixed with oil. If kept pleased by a coating of oil and redlead and if he is given offerings of clarified butter Bhairav is kindly. He cures snake-bites and tells whether an undertaking will do well or will fail. In the chest of the rough figure of Bhairav are two small holes. The person who wishes to consult the oracle places a betelnut in each of the holes and explains to Bhairav that if the right betelnut falls first it will mean that the undertaking will prosper, and that if the left betelnut falls first it will mean that the undertaking will fail. He asks the god, according as the oven is to be, to let the lucky or the unlucky nut fall first. He tells the god that if he will drop the lucky nut and if his undertaking prospers he will give the god a cock or a goat. Twice a year before they begin to sow and before they begin to reap the villagers come in procession and worship Bhairav. BHAVANI, that is Parvati the wife of Shiv, has two local names, Phringi and Tukai. She shares with Bhairav the honour of being village guardian; she is generally shown as a rude image, either with two hands, a sword being in the right hand, or with eight hands holding a conch, a wheel, and other articles the same as Vishnu holds. Like Bhairav she is asked the cause of sickness or ill-luck and to advise regarding the future, and like him if she removes trouble or advises well she is given a goat or a cock. BIROBA is worshipped by Dhangars or Shepherds. He lives in an unhewn stone outside of the village. Like Mhasoba he is an unkindly spirit to whom people pray when they are anxious to plague or ruin their enemies. JAKHAI, JANAI, JOKHAI, KALKAI, METISAI, MUKAI and NAVLAI are all local mothers. According to the people's account they are unkindly forms of Bhavani. With the help of two attendants, Naikji and Birji, they do much mischief. They blast crops of grain, plague men with sickness, and carry off travellers. People who owe their neighbours a grudge pray to Janai, Mukai, or one of the other mothers to send them sickness, to kill their cattle, or to ruin their fields. KHANDOBA, literally sword-father, guards the country as Bhairav guards the village. Khandoba is the Ishvar Dev or guardian deity of the Deccan. As a guardian he is shown sometimes, as at his chief shrine at Jejuri, as a ling, the great protector, and more often as a horseman with a sword in his right hand, and his wife Mhalsabai sitting beside him. As a horseman he is Malhari, the form he took when he came to destroy the demons Mani and Malla. As an animal he is the dog who runs beside his horse and in the Deccan is generally called Khandi. As a plant he is turmeric-powder under the name Bhandar. He is the chief house god of all Poona Hindus from Brahmans to Mhars. His house image is always of metal, never of wood or of stone. He drives away the evil which causes sickness. No class honour Khandoba so highly as the Ramoshis. If a Ramoshi makes a promise while laying his hand on turmeric-powder or bhandar, that is on Khandoba, nothing will bring him to break his promise. MARUTI also called Hanuman is the monkey god. No Poona village is without its Maruti, a rudely embossed monkey figure, sometimes within the village and sometimes without, but generally near the gate. He is a kindly god, the great saver of those into whom evil spirits have entered. He is fond of cocoanuts but does not care for blood-offerings. MHASOBA or MASKOBA IS perhaps the commonest and most widely feared of the local evil spirits. He lives in an unhewn stone coated with redlead. These stones are all old dwellings of Mhasoba. Some get forgotten. Then sickness falls on the village and the people go to the village guardian and ask him a series of questions which he answers by dropping a betelnut or by some other sign. In the end they find out from the guardian that there is an old neglected dwelling of Mhasoba. The villagers find the stone, cover it with oil and red-lead, and kill a goat or a fowl in front of it. Besides to prevent his working mischief Mhasoba is worshipped by men who have a grudge to clear off or a wrong to avenge. They go to Mhasoba name their enemy, and promise, if he ruins their enemy with sickness that they will give him a goat or a fowl. So much is he feared that when a man knows that some one whom he has ill-used has arranged to set Mhasoba on him, he makes such amends that the god is not forced to exert his powers. SATVAI, or Mother Sixth, is the goddess of pregnant and lying-in women. She is worshipped by barren women, and by lying-in woman on the fifth or sixth day after the child is born. Her image is an armless bust. VAGHOBA, or Father Tiger, lives in an unhewn stone. If he is cared for he guards the village herds from the attacks of tigers. VETAL is the leader of demons and evil spirits. He seems to be the earliest form of Shiv, the leader of spirits, and Ganesh, the lord of spirit troops. Vetal lives in an unhewn stone, three or four feet high, surrounded at a distance of a few yards by a circle of smaller stones in which his leading attendants live. Unlike most shrines the stones in which Vetal and his attendants live are covered both with white and red wash. Vetal and his guard are generally at some distance outside of the village. Vetal's great day is the Mahashivratri or great night of Shiv on the full-moon of Magh in February. On that night the villagers, each with a bundle of lighted straw in his hand, walk round the circle of stones howling and bawling. When a Kunbi or one of his family is possessed by an evil spirit he goes to Vetal and promises, if he orders his spirit to give over troubling him, that he will give him a goat or a fowl. Vetal is the patron of wrestlers and athletes. On one of the holidays the villagers go and wrestle at Vetal's circle. Vetal's sign is a cane called bet or vet, from which he seems to get his name. From his apparent sameness with the early forms of Shiv, and from the resemblance, of his circle of guards to a rude Buddhist rail, and to the circles of unhewn stones found in western Europe and in other parts of the world, the worship of Vetal is specially interesting.

Kunbis believe in incantations, witchcraft, ghosts and evil spirits, oracles, and the evil eye. Partly perhaps because they are much more sober, partly perhaps because fever is much less common the Poona Kunbis are much less afraid of spirits than the Konkan Kunbis. [In 1819 Dr. Coates (Trans. Bom. Lit. Soe. III. 245) noticed that temperance and freedom from the use of narcotics saved the Poona Kunbi from the long and horrid train of nervous derangements from low Spirits to mania. It is these nervous derangements which in all countries have been specially believed to be spirit-caused. diseases.] Still the belief in spirits, witchcraft, and the evil eye has a great effect on the lives of Poona Kunbis. If a Kunbi is seized with uncommon sickness, or suffers from any calamity, he first finds out whether his misfortunes are due to natural causes, to the displeasure of the gods, to witchcraft, to the evil eye, or to an evil spirit. To find out the cause the sufferer and his friends make several experiments. A flower is stuck on the breast of an idol and its fall on one side or the other determines the cause of the misfortune, or a sacrificial vessel is hung by a string, and, as is agreed beforehand, the direction to which it points when it comes to rest settles the cause of the evil. If these trials are not satisfactory & janta or knowing man is asked. If the evil has come from the gods the knowing man says how the gods are to be pleased; if the cause is witchcraft, either the knowing man breaks the spell by counter charms, or the witch is caught and either forced to remove the spell or made to drink water from the hands of a cobbler which destroys her power, if the cause is the evil eye, either the knowing man breaks the spell, or the mother of the sick child throws salt and red pepper into the fire saying, Drisht-misht ali gelichi, Bhut-khet papi chandalachi that is, The evil eye of passers-bye; Of evil sprites and filthy wights.' The evil eye is much feared. The owner of the eye is not thought to blame, but he is shunned and cattle are not driven past his door. To draw the evil eye from the crops a whitewashed pot is stuck on a pole; the walls of houses are decked with figures and gaudy stripes; beautiful women and children wear necklaces, and cattle wear necklaces and anklets. A Kunbi never congratulates a friend on his prosperity, his fine oxen, or his handsome wife. If he does, Ill-luck will hear and carry away the excess of good fortune. Every place teems with ghosts and evil spirits, who are included under the general term bhut, literally a being. The male ghosts are called Keins or Jhotings, and the female ghosts Hadals. Among the worst female ghosts are the seven water-nymphs called Aija or Jaldevtas, who carry off handsome youths. There are distinct names for the ghosts of Brahmans, Musalmans, and outcastes. A ghost wanders and ill-uses the living either because he was murdered or ill-treated, or because he hankers after a house, a wife, or a treasure. Ghosts live in large trees, lonely places, empty houses, and old wells. They are generally seen or heard at noon and at mid-night. They take many shapes, a deer, a tall figure, or a strange ox or goat. If a person sleeps under a haunted tree, or cuts a branch of a haunted tree, or defiles the ghost's ruin or old wall, or jostles a ghost on a road, the person sickens or is unlucky. The ghosts of the murdered or the ill-used are chiefly dangerous to those who ill-treated them. The ghost enters into the culprit, maddens him, destroys his sleep, kills his family, and turns his joy to sorrow. Many people make a living by appeasing or casting out angry spirits. One plan is for the exerciser to take the possessed person in front of an idol, to seize him by the top-knot, scourge him, and abuse him till the spirit says what offering or penance will satisfy him. [These details are from Dr. Coates' Paper on the Village of Loni in 1819 (Trans Bom. Lit. Sec. III. 210-220). The account still truly represents the belief and practices of the Poona Kunbi.]

The Kunbis' chief holidays are Holi in March, Nagpanchmi in July, Gauri and Pola in August, Dasara in October, and Divali in November. Holi, also called Shimga, lasts five days. Both old and young look forward to it with delight. It is ushered in by boys and men making a loud bawling, broken at intervals by stopping the mouth with the back of the hand, and calling the names of the male and female organs. Cowdung cakes for the bonfire are stolen wherever they can be found. On the evening of the full-moon the men of the village form two gatherings, the Kunbis and the bulk of the people at the village office, and the Mhars and other men of low caste by themselves in their own quarter. In front of the village office a spot is swept clean and sprinkled with water. In the centre the stem of a sugarcane and of a castor plant are stuck in the ground and round them dried cowdung cakes are piled six to seven feet high. The heap is called Hutashani or the offering-sater that is fire. The people sit round the heap in a ring and the headman with the help of the priest worships the heap and offers grain and flowers. The chief offering is a cake, the presenting of which is one of the chief headman's most prized rights. The pile is kindled from the Mhars' bonfire. Stealing the Mhars' fire is a work of some risk as the Mhars are on the look-out and throw burning brands at the thief. The fire is put into the headman's hands, who lights the pile and walks thrice round it calling out, Phoda, phoda, jhavla, that is the female organ is united. Then till morning follow songs and dances, in which boys dressed like dancing girls take the place of women. The favourite dance known as the tipria on baton-dance is performed by twenty to thirty young men moving in a circle to the sound of a drum and pipe, each armed with a piece of seasoned wood about a foot long which they clash against the sticks alternately of the dancers before and behind them. Besides dancing they play games, the Tiger and Sheep, the Fox and Dog, and Prisoner's Base. The next day is known as the Dhulvadicha Divas or the Dust Day, because the people throw dust on each other. This is the Kunbi's field new year's day. Each family of Kunbis goes to the village god with a metal plate on which rice is strewn. On the rice is a water-pot and at the mouth of the water-pot a cocoanut and betel leaves. The plate is held before the village god and the cocoanut is broken and the shell given to the god. During the three remaining days of the Holi, men and boys meet in groups, some in fantastic dresses throwing dust and mud. Women, who seldom appear, are saluted with obscene speeches and men of rank with coarse jests. Some go outside of the village to Vetal's stone, the patron of wrestlers, and there wrestle and perform feats of strength. About noon they bathe, feast, and sleep, and in the evening dance and play games. The Holi ends on the fifth, which is known as Rangpanchmi or Colour-fifth. The colour is pink. It is made by adding an alkaline salt to a decoction of palas Butea frondosa flowers, mixing them in water, and throwing the water over each other from pots and syringes. They also dust each other with a red flour. On this day women share in the fun. They carry branches of the castor plant and lay hold of the headman or other rich villagers and plague them till they give a post or present. [Trans. Bom. Lit, Soc, III. 221. 223.] Nag-panchmi or the Cobra's Fifth in July is the Kunbi woman's festival. In the after, noon all the women, dressed in their best, go with music to a white ant-hill in which a cobra is believed to live, and lay milk and sugar near the ant-hill while the priest says prayers. The women take hands, dance round the ant-hill in a ring alternately rising and kneeling and keeping time to a song which they sing in chorus. At intervals they take parched rice in a clenched hand, and putting it on each other's heads ask their husband's name. As they may not answer directly they bring in his name in a rhyme. [Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. Ill, 231.] At the Gauri festival in August the women paint on paper a figure of the goddess, who is the same as Lakshmi, worship the figure, and feast. [Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. III. 231.] At the August Pola the oxen have a rest. Their horns are covered with tinsel or red, and palas fibre tassels are tied to their tips. Garlands of flowers are put round their necks, they are fed with sugar, and their owners fall at their feet and worship them. In the evening, after the headman's cattle, all the oxen are driven round Hanuman's temple. The day ends with a feast. [Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. III 225.] Dasara falls on the bright tenth of Ashvin, generally in October. It is believed to mark Bhavani's defeat of the buffalo-demon Mahishasur. The first to the ninth are a time of mourning, during which the goddess is not disturbed by prayers or vows. On the first day with music the people go to Bhavani's temple and make offerings and the priest sows eighteen grains in front of the goddess. From the first to the tenth, both near the temple image and the house image of Bhavani, a garland is hung by some one who abstains from grain, batter, and animal food. The tenth is a day of rejoicing; all wear new clothes, dress in their gayest, and feast on mutton. In the forenoon all iron weapons and tools are brought out and worshipped. Horses are bathed and dressed with flowers, and a sheep is sacrified to them and its blood sprinkled over them. In the evening all put in their turban some plants of the grain which was sown before the village Bhavani, and with music they go to the village boundary worship the apta tree Bauhinia tomentosa. They cross the boundary and pluck some stalks of grain, and on their return offer apta leaves, which are called gold, and ears of corn to the village gods and then exchange them among their friends. A male buffalo is sometimes sacrificed. [Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc; III. 224. Sir John Malcolm, in a letter from Poona 24th November 1799 (Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. III. 79-96), gives some further details of the Dasara rites observed by the Poona Marathas and Brahmans. On the first night a kalash or jar, either of brass or earth, is set up as the symbol (or dwelling) of the goddess Bhavani. Offerings are made to girls between two and nine years of age. On the first night combs are given; on the second sweet oil, mirrors, and glass; on the third turmeric, safflower, and henna; on the fourth day antimony, sweet cakes, and fruit; on the fifth sandal and other sweet oils and an image of Chandika, an early form of Bhavani, is put under a tulsi bush; on the seventh Sarasvati is worshipped; on the last day prayers are addressed to all things wanted for war, among others to the umbrella the horse, the flagstaff, the elephant, the sword, the bow and arrow the mother of arms, and guns and cannon. At the end of the ninth day Bhavani's jar is throw into water. On the tenth day all go north-east to a shami tree. Soldiers shoot arrows as the tree, and they put some leaves in their turban and come back. Kings and chiefs should lead their troops to the verge of the city and worship the shami tree. By this act small-pox, famine, and other evils are driven beyond the borders. The peshwas moved out to a camp near Poona with all his chiefs, each under his banner, on his beat horse and in his richest clothes. All the people of Poona joined and marched to the sacred tree. The Peshwa, after prayers and offerings, plucked some leaves, cannon and musketry fired a salute, the state accounts were produced and sealed, the Peshwa plucked a stalk of millet from a field, and the whole crowd firing guns or shoot ingarrows rushed into the field each striving to get a stalk of millet. All shout and spend the rest of the day in feasting and mirth. A buffalo decked with flowers and daubed with paint is brought before the chief's horse or elephant, and his head is struck off with one blow and his blood in sprinkled with great ceremony over the his head horses. In smaller towns the buffalo is led round the town, grain and and liquor are sprinkled as the procession goes and when the round is ended the buffalo's head is cut off, sheep are sacrificed, and the flesh is eaten by all but Brahmans.] Divali comes twenty days after Dasara. It lasts three days with feasting, lighting, and fireworks. Oil is burnt in earthen cups which are placed in front of village temples, public buildings, and houses. Boys let off crackers and the rich burn all kinds of fireworks. According to the story when Mahadev killed the demon Narkasur, he agreed that in his honour there should be a yearly light feast. It is the native bankers' and merchants' new year. [Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. III. 225.] Besides these main festivals many field rites are practised by Poona Kunbis. About the end of April on the Akshatritia, literally the undying third, offerings are made to three generations of dead warriors and a fresh year of field work begins. [Dr. Coates in Tran. Bom, Lit. Soc. III. 256; Mr. J. G. Moore, C. S.] In the east of the district, before beginning to plough waste land, cooked rice or fine millet or Indian millet cakes, curds, a cocoanut, and a he-goat or fowl are offered to the field spirit, Mhasoba, Navlai, or Satvai. This is not done in the west of the district. In the east, before beginning to sow, each of the village gods, Maruti, Bahiroba, and Ganpati, is given a handful of grain. This is not done in the west. In the west, when the rice seedlings are ready to plant, the villagers meet on a Sunday, anoint their village god, who is generally Bahiroba or Hanuman, with oil and redlead, sacrifice a he-goat and ten fowls, and offer five cocoanuts, frankincense, fifteen lemons, and camphor. They ask the god to give them good crops, and walk round the village calling the name of their god, A feast is prepared and the sacrifices are eaten near the temple. Each landholder on the Tuesday before he begins to plant his rice kills a fowl and sprinkles its blood over the field and offers the field spirit a cocoanut, some sweetmeats, and five lemons, and burns frankincense and camphor. Before beginning to make ready the threshing-floor some husbandmen offer Mhasoba, Mavlai, or Satvai millet-cakes, curds, a cocoanut, and a he-goat or fowl. Before setting up the tivda or central pole of the threshing-floor all ask an astrologer what wood they should use. Under the pole they bury mango, jambhul, shami Mimosa shamu, arati and rui Calotropis gigantea twigs and an egg. They set up as a shrine or devsthan an earthen pot and seven pebbles, five for the Pandavs and one each for Vandev or the forest god and Vanspatra or the forest lord. The pot and the pebbles are smeared with redlead and frankincense is burnt before them. Kunbis sacrifice a sheep or a he-goat; a Brahman or Gujarat Vani would offer five grains of wheat or five millet cakes and five each of betel, cloves, cardamums, turmeric roots, and pieces of cocoa-kernel. When the grain is thrashed some husbandmen offer a sheep, a goat, a fowl, or cakes. Before winnowing an animal or cakes and fruit are offered at the Pandav shrine. Rice is also offered and scattered over the threshing floor, a rite known as raspuja, that is the heap-worship. When an animal is offered the rice is steeped with blood before it is thrown. Before Measuring the grain the astrologer is asked which of the husband-man's family should measure, it. With a broom of early jvari stalks the grain is heaped round the central pole and incense is burned before it, a two-sher or adholi measure is held in the incense smoke and handed to the measurer, who offers the first measureful to the village god. If a crop is attacked by rust, in some parts of the district a fowl is sacrificed or a cocoanut is offered to the village deity. At all these rites the village priest is present, recites texts and is given a cocoanut or a few coppers. [Mr. J. G. Moore, C. S.] Their priests are the ordinary Maratha Brahmans to whom they pay great respect. They make pilgrimages to Alandi, Benares, Nasik and Pandharpur. [In 1819 Dr. Coates wrote: The Kunbis are sincere and devout. Their rules enjoin charity, benevolence, and reverence to parents, and have a wholesome influence on their conduct. They are nominally followers of Mahadev, but join in the worship of any sect that comes in their way. They constantly make vows at Musalmans and occasionally at Christian tombs. Their chief objects of worship are Khandu and Bairu local Mahadevs, and Jamni, Yamni, and Tukia local Parvatis. Every family has two or more gold or silver relief plates of these gods, about four inches high by two broad. They are the house gods and are kept in a stand in some safe part of the dwelling. Every morning one of the family, generally the grandmother, bathes and anoints the images, lays grain before them, and burns frankincense. Before staring on his day's work each member of the family comes and with a low bow prays for strength for the day's labour, safety for the family and cattle, and the days bread. People who are too poor to marry, who are out of work, sick, or unlucky their friends and go to some temple and vow if the evil is removed to swing before the god with hooks in their black, to roll on the ground in front of the god, to come before him in chains, to offer him a sheep goat or fowl or sweetmeats or a cocoanut.]

The first five months of a woman's pregnancy are known as the months of longing or dohole. She longs to eat tamarinds, cakes bread, ambada or Spondias mangifera, pot-herbs, fish, and flesh. If she is refused the child is born with unhealthy ears. After deliverey the position of the woman is not changed for some time. [In 1819 Dr. Coates (Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. III. 245) described the Kunbi women at child-birth as shut in a close hole without air or light, and a lamp, generally a char-coal lamp, burning. She was fed with spices and other stimulating food and often suffered from fever and rheumatism,] If the child is a boy the midwife beats a metal-pot and is paid 3d. to 6d. (2-4 as.); if the child is a girl the father is told without any sign of rejoicing and the midwife is paid about 1�d. (1 a.). The father notes the time of birth that the Brahman astrologer may be able to choose a lucky name. The midwife cuts the child's navel cord with a knife and holding the cord in her left hand passes it through the child's mouth. She touches the spot where the navel cord was cut with ashes and rubs the mother and the child with turmeric and oil, bathes them in hot water, and swathes the child in cloth bandages. The mother is given butter and myrrh pills and the child is dosed with three or four drops of castor oil. The mother is fumigated by burning vavading Embelia ribes, ova Ligusticum ajwaen, and balantshep Anethum graveolus in the room, and then, with her child beside her, is laid on a cot under which a small fire of live coal is set. The mother is fed on fine rice, butter, pepper, and warm water. Near the door of the room an earthen pot of cow's urine is set with a nim branch floating on it. That no evil spirit may come in with them all visitors sprinkle a few drops of cow's urine on their feet before entering the room. At noon the mother is bathed in hot water and elderly women begin to drop in and ask how she is. If the child is a boy they congratulate her warmly; if it is a girl, they say The first daughter is bread and butter, pahili beti tup-roti. If the child's aunt is present at the time of delivery she cowdungs the threshold of the room, places a packet of betelnut and leaves near it, and says looking towards the child, ' This child is to be my son's wife.' The mother smiles, and if she has a son says, ' When you get a daughter she will become my daughter-in-law.' In the evening the mother is again bathed, nim juice is given her to drink, and she is fed as in the morning on rice, butter, and pepper, and is given some hot water to drink. The child as before is dosed with three or four drops of castor oil, and laid by the mother's side on the cot. A lamp is kept burning during the night, and next morning, after rubbing them with turmeric and oil, both mother and child are bathed, the mother is fumigated with, vishesh or frankincense, and the child is given a dose of castor oil. The mother takes some nim juice, has a meal of rice, butter, and pepper, and is given some hot water to drink. At noon women neighbours and kinswomen begin to drop in. As each comes she touches the soles of her feet as if taking a pinch of dust off them, waves it round the child, and blows the dust partly into the air and partly into the ground. Then cracking the finger joints of both her hands, she takes her seat, and is given turmeric and redpowder. Should she be unlucky enough not to crack all her finger joints, she is thought to have no friendly feelings to the mother and child, and is not given the powder. In the evening if the child takes to crying, frankincense is burnt in the names of Bahiroba and the goddess Satvai, and they are prayed to save the child and prolong its life. On the third and fourth days, except bathing the mother in hot water, nothing particular is done. On the morning of the fifth day the following articles are brought: A cocoanut, five pieces of cocoa-kernel, five dry dates, five grains of pepper, dry ginger, poppy, cardamums, cloves, nutmeg, betelnut and leaves, catechu, scented and redpowders, tooth-powder, a coloured cord with a small parcel of red and scented powder or nada-pudi, frankincense, turmeric, and a small copper or brass image of Satvai. Dishes of mutton and rice flour balls are cooked and kinspeople and friends are asked to a feast. The women guests bring with them on a brass plate a few grains of rice, a cocoanut, and betel leaves, and set them before the goddess Satvai. Then the child's grandmother or some other elderly woman of the house sets a low wooden stool in the lying-in room and places the image of Satvai on the stool. She sprinkles redpowder on the image, burns frankincense, offers fruit and cooked food, and, wrapping the child in a cloth, lays it before the goddess and prays her to accept the offerings, to be kind to the child, and to overlook any shortcomings in the worship. The mother comes forward, bows before the image, and eats of all the dishes. The other women bow before the goddess, and after eating return to their homes. When the women have gone the men begin to drop in. As they come they are seated on blankets and dinner is served. After dinner a pipe of tobacco is handed round, first to the patil, then to the senior guest, and then to the rest, except to youths who must go out if they want to smoke. singing, smoking, and drinking go on till morning, when all go home. Next morning the mother and child are rubbed with cocoanut oil and bathed in warm water, and she goes back to her special diet of rice, butter, pepper, and hot water. On the morning of the seventh day the cot and the earthen water-pot are smeared with red-powder and turmeric, five lighted rice flour lamps are placed in the water-pot, and cooked food is offered. Five unmarried girls are rubbed with redpowder and turmeric and their laps are filled with wet gram, a piece of cocoa-kernel, betel leaves and nuts, and small balls of powdered ginger mixed with molasses. After the mother has prostrated herself five times and bowed thrice before the girls a dinner is served to one or two women neighbours. On the morning of the eighth day the mother and child are bathed, and after eating her usual special food she is given betel leaves and nut to chew and a dish of live coals is placed under her cot. Cocoa-kernel and dry date kharik are pounded together and mixed with molasses, and a little is given to the mother and the rest is distributed among the neighbours. On the ninth day, except that the mother is bathed with hot water, nothing particular is done. On the tenth day two or three women come and wash all the clothes and bedding and in return are given breakfast. All the house walls and floors get a fresh plaster of cowdung, and, when the songsters come, cow's urine is sprinkled on their bodies and clothes. Then they, together with the house-people, feast on bread, relishes, white shepu or Anethum foenicatum, and green chillies. On the eleventh day preparations are made for the twelfth-day ceremony. Articles are laid in and the Brahman priest and guests are invited.

On the morning of the twelfth day the women of the house bathe the mother and again purify the walls and floor of the house with a plaster of cowdung. They bake some cakes and begin to cook dishes of rice, vegetables, and pulse. A goat is killed, and its blood is gathered in a metal plate and mixed with spices and boiling water. This dish is called rakti. The bones and flesh are cooked in two separate pots and the liver or kaling in the third. A girl goes to tell the neighbours that the feast is ready, and when a few women have come the mother goes along with them to a spot outside the village and makes offerings to Satvai. On their return a bangle-seller puts green bangles round the mother's and black bangles round the midwife's wriests. Men guests have by this time begun to drop in, and, as they come, are seated on blankets spread in the veranda. The Brahman priest next arrives with his almanac, and he too takes his seat in the veranda. The women of the house tell the Brahman the day and time at which the child was born, and he, spreading his almanac before him and counting his fingers, gives the child a name, and tells his fortune. The child is dressed in a new frock and cap. Soot is rubbed of his cheeks and eyelids, and he is set facing the east. The priest is given about two pounds (1 sher) of rice, and split pulse, a little molasses, and betelnut and leaves. A cradle is hung from the ceiling, and worshipped, turmeric and redpowder are thrown over it, cooked food is offered, and a blanket is spread in it with some wet grain and betelnut and leaves in the corners and a string tied in the middle. The mother sits near the cradle, and each of the neighbour women gives her redpowder and turmeric and presents the child with a frock, a cap, and a cocoanut. They dress the child and lay it in the cradle, and as they rock the cradle they sing songs. The mother lifts the child, and turning it thrice round the cradle they say, ' Take Harpal and give Gopal, take Govind and give Krishna, take Mahadev and give Ram, take Bharat and give Shatrughna.' The child is then laid in the cradle, and one of the women, the rest all the time slapping her on the back, pats her mouth close to the child's ear, and says,' Quietly quietly receive pulse and take Somji, the name given to the child, Patel to play'. [The Marathi runs: Chup chup ghugarya ghya ani amche Somji Patlas khelayas] Then the mother's lap is filled with a cocoanut, rice, glass beads, turmeric, pieces of cocoa-kernel, and betelnut, and she is taken to bow to the family gods. A piece of thread is tied round the child's loins and the guests are feasted, the men and the women in separate rooms. After they have done they are given betelnut and leaves, wet pulse, and rice cakes. When the guests begin to leave an old man and woman seat themselves in the doorway and refuse to let the women pass till each mentions her husband's name. After some coquetting the boldest of the women repeats some verses in which her husband's name occurs. The couplets are,

I was walking tinkling tinkling, I was looking through the window, Whose stately form is this, The son of Abaji my sister-in-law's younger brother. [The Marathi runs: Jhunuk jhunuk jat hote, khidki vate pahat hote, ha daulkondcha, Abdjichya potcha, vhanjichya pathcha.]

Or, Balu Patel of the big round turban he is my husband. [Chakri munddsdche Balu Patel bhratar mhanje amche,]

Or, A golden winnowing fan broidered with pearls, the queen of Krishnaji Chavgula is at play. [Sonynachi supli, motyane gumplai, Krishnaji Chaugulyachi rani khelayas guntli.]

Or, A jar of molasses with a lid of clarified butter, Santu barber's wife is the fairest of gems. [Guldchya ghdgarila tupache lipan, Santu Nhavyachi bayako lai nami ratan.]

Or, A red checkered robe with nine lakhs of strings, however many mistresses you may have there is none like the queen of Vithu carpenter. [Tadpadari pasodi tila navu lakh dashi, kiti bhogilya bataki dani tari Vithu Sutarachi khashi.]

Or, To a basil plant before the door handfuls of water, At first I was my parents' pet and then the queen of Bhiva Kumbhar. [Dari hoti tulas tila vanjal vanjal pani, adhi hole dibapachi tanhi, mag jale Bhiva Kumbharachi rani.]

If among the matrons an unmarried girl is stopped by mistake she says,

Behind the door was a niche and in the niche there was wheat; my parents have not married me, whose name can I take. [Daramage hota kondda tyant hota gahu, dibdpani lagan kele nahi nav konache gheu?]

On the thirteenth day the mother begins to go about the house, washing, cooking, and cleaning as usual. Except on the full and new moon the child is bathed every day. When two months old, as a safeguard against liver disease, the mother gives the child ' tooth-powder mixed with cow's milk and liquor, and rubs its stomach with black nut and ashes, while a sorcerer says a charm or a mystic verse. To increase her supply of milk the mother is given rice, butter, and split peas. When the child is three months old, to help it to hold tap its head, the mother is given a cooked goat's head and round the child's neck is hung a black thread with two black nuts or bajarbatus and an image of the goddess Satvai. In this month a black thread is tied round the child's waist and copper rings are put on its feat, and to ward off the evil eye the eyelids of both the child and the mother are touched with soot. In the same month the mother and the child with other relations go to visit the shrine of the goddess Satvai, when a goat, tooth-powder, turmeric, redpowder, betelnut and leaves, soot, two cocoanuts, a robe and bodice, some grains of rice, dry cocoa-kernel, and frankincense are offered to the goddess and the goat is killed before her. The head is placed behind the goddess and the body is taken away, presented to the goddess, cooked, and eaten. The temple priest or ministrant tells the goddess the reason of the offering, and, taking a pinch of ashes, rubs them on the brow of the child and of its mother. After feasting on the flesh of the goat and on other dishes, the party bay back the goat's head paying 1�d to 6d. (1-4 as.), and go home. All the religions parts of this ceremony are performed by the temple servant who is generally a Gurav by caste. On reaching the house the mother and child stand at the door, and a woman comes from the house and waves a piece of bread round them and pours water over the mother's feet.

When the child is four or five months old it is bathed outside of the house, and when it is about a year old and begins to walk, its head is shaved except a tuft on the crown, and the hair is offered to the goddess Satvai. The barber gets a present of a pair of scissors; and the mother gives a feast to a party of married women. Six months later, when the child begins to eat, any flow of saliva is stopped by the mother passing an aged live fish three or four times round its face. When four years old the child begins to run about the streets and lanes and plays at marbles, bat and ball, tops, and hide and seek. After about seven the child begins to be of use to his parents, taking the cattle to graze and bringing them home in the evening. When ten or twelve years old he is branded as a cowherd either on the right or left hand or on both hands. A few pellets of hare's dung are brought from a hill, pounded, and set in four or five places about the boy's wrist and burnt. The other boys hold the child so as to keep him quiet, and when he can no longer bear the pain the burning pellets are knocked off and the skin rubbed.

At sixteen, the parents of the boy, if well-to-do, think of marrying him, or, as they say, tying a clog round his neck. The girl chosen for a wife is usually three to twelve years old. Among Kunbis it is not necessary that a girl should be married before she reaches womanhood, and among men though if well-to-do they may be married at sixteen, it often happens that in large or poor families the younger sons remain unmarried till well on in life. Before a marriage can be fixed it must be ascertained that the boy and the girl are not same clan or cul; they may both bear the same surname but the crest or devak must be different. Sameness of stock in the female line is no ground for objection. After talking the matter over and fixing on the most suitable girl, the boy's father goes to a Brahman, tell him of the object of his visit, and asks him to say when he ought to start to make his offer to the girl's parents. The Brahman gets his almanac from the house and sets it before him, and the boy's father, laying a betelnut and a copper coin on the book and bowing to it, sits in front of the Brahman. The Brahman takes the betelnut and the coin, opens the almanac, counts his fingers, and tells the boy's father that the whole of that and the next day are lucky and that his errand will be successful. The father bows and withdraws. Next morning, he dresses in his best waistcloth, shouldercloth, turban, and sandals, ties together a few cakes and some vegetables, and with one or two kinspeople starts for the girl's house. Before leaving he looks about him. If he sees a married woman or a cow he thinks it lucky and starts, if a Brahman or a widow happens to pass he goes back and stops for some time on his veranda before he makes a fresh start. When the father and his companions reach the girl's, he makes over the bundle of refreshments to the women of the house. A blanket is spread and the guests are asked to sit. They are given a pipe of tobacco and water to wash their feet and are asked to dine. While dining the women from behind the door ask them why they have come. They say,' We have come to sweeten your child's mouth; it rests with you to carry out our wishes.' They then take a nap. In the evening when the men come home they talk the matter over, the women joining in the talk from behind the door. The girl's father says, ' It is of no use marrying the girl, she is too young, she is still a child, and has never had small-pox. The women of your house may not like her, you better look out for a wife elsewhere; and names other houses. The boy's father presses him and after a time he agrees, and as a sign of agreement the two fathers dine from the same plate. Next morning the boy's father goes to the village astrologer, lays a betelnut and a copper coin on his almanac, and tells him the boy's and girl's names. The Brahman as before consults his almanac, counts his fingers, says that the stars favour the marriage, and fixes the next day for the sugar and rice or gulbhat feast. The boy's father sends word to the girl's house and goes home. Soon after the girl's father goes to the boy's father and asks him and his relations to come next day to a sugar and rice feast at his house. At the same time they settle what presents each is to make to the other's child; that the boy's father should not take more than five or six men to dine with him during marriage dinners; that 30s. (Rs. 15) should be paid as dowry or dej to the girl's father a month before the marriage day; and lastly that some of the girl's relations should be present when her wedding clothes are bought. When these points are settled the girl's father goes home. Next day the boy's father and some of his relations, taking earrings a robe and bodice a cocoanut and betel go to the girl's, and, before dining, make over the presents to the women of the house, asking them to put the ornaments in the girl's ears, to dress her in the robe and bodice, and to lay the cocoanut and betel before the house gods. Then the sugar and rice dinner begins. When the guests are seated one of them asks the girl's father why the dinner is given. To this one of the leading guests, perhaps the patil, answers that the dinner is given because the host, naming him, has given his daughter to so-and-so's son. Then, after the girl's father has been asked and has answered that what the patil says is true, the boy's father is asked what ornaments he has given. He names them, adding that it has been settled that the robe should be worth 30s. (Rs. 15) and should be bought in presence of the girl's relations; that not more than five or six men should be taken to dinner; that at least one month before the marriage 30s. (Rs. 15) on account of dowry or dej should be sent to the girl's parents; and that the girls' parents are to give the boy a sash and a turban together worth 10s. (Rs.5), and 7s. (Rs.3�) on account of a metal bathing tub and pot. When all these points have been publicly settled they begin to eat, and at the end of the feast, after a pipe and betelnut, they go home. The boy's father before leaving asks the girl's father to dine next day at his house. When the girl's father and his friends arrive, the boy is brought forward and shown to the guests, one of the old women of the house remarking how fine-looking and healthy he is, and adding, ' We have shown our boy to you, but we have not yet, seen your girl. We hope your girl is as handsome as our boy. Then the boy is bathed and dressed, and his brow is marked with sandal, and the girl's father, who has brought a bodice, a cocoanut, and betelnut and leaves, gives them to the women of the house telling them to lay them before the house gods and to give the bodice to the boy's grandmother. Dinner is served, and just as at the girl's house, the form of naming the marriage presents is gone through. When dinner is over the guests leave, the boy's fathers being warned that little time is left, and that he should be ready, referring to the �1 10s. (Rs.15) he has to pay as purchase-money or dowry.

From this time the marriage preparations are pressed on. The boy's father pays the girl's father the �110s. (Rs. 15) in presence of a couple of witnesses and next morning both men and women go to the market and buy clothes. When they return the Brahman priest is sent for. When he comes he is seated on a blanket with his almanac spread before him and asked to fix a lucky day for the wedding. After consulting his almanac and counting his fingers, the Brahman says, 'Wednesday morning is the best time for the turmeric-rubbing; an hour before sunset is the luckiest time for the wedding; and Thursday night for the marriage procession.' The boy's father sends a message to that effect to the girl's parents and send to ask kinspeople, friends, and castemen. The shoemaker is told to make a new pair of shoes for the boy, and the potter to bring earthen pots on the morning of the marriage day. The boy's fathal goes to his neighbours and asks them to help him to build a marriage booth in front of his house. He brings bunches of mango leave, and hangs them about the booth, keeping a bough for the lucky pillar or muhurt-medh which is planted on the marriage day. Except that an altar is built at the girl's house, the preparations at both houses are the same. In the evening, both at the boy's and at the girl's, wet pulse, turmeric, redpowder, betelnut and leave, cocoanuts, and dry cocoa-kernel, dry dates, and two bundles of thread, worth altogether 2s. 6d. (Rs. 1�) are laid in. [The details are: Pulse, turmeric, and betelnut about 9d. (6 as.); cocoanuts and kernel, 1s. 9d. (14 as.); thread, 1� (1 anna).] Musicians are called and for two days' playing are paid about 1s. 6d. (12 as.). Early on the wedding morning at the girl's house the millstones are washed and turmeric is ground into fine powder. A piece of cloth is dipped in turmeric, and a few grains of rice, a betelnut, and a tamarind root are laid in the cloth and tied to the neck of the millstone which is not used till the marriage ceremony is ever. A low wooden stool is set in the doorway and round the stool five metal water-pots are arranged and a thread is passed five times round them. Some betelnuts and a few grains of rice are laid in the girl's hands, and a metal pot filled with cold water in the hands of the bridesmaid or karavli, and the two go round the pots five times. Then the bridesmaid, walking behind the girl, pours a little water on the low wooden stool, and the girl five times drops a few grains of rice on the water, and setting first her right foot and then her left foot on the stool sits on it. Her head is rubbed with oil and she is bathed. While this goes on the girl bathes a number of little children who stand in front of her and the musicians from time to time play their pipes. When all the children have been bathed the girl's mother comes forward, and, sitting close to her daughter on the low wooden stool, is bathed. When the bath is over the mother is presented with a robe and bodice, and, if she is not a widow, her arms are rubbed with turmeric and redpowder is rubbed on her brow and a cocoanut and rice are laid in her lap. The girl is dressed in a robe and green bodice and her clothes are stained with wet turmeric, her forehead is daubed with redpowder and rice, her cheeks and the space between the eyebrows are marked with soot, and in her lap are laid a cocoanut, five dry cocoa-kernels, five betelnuts, five turmeric roots, and some grains of wheat. After this a chaplet, either of flowers or of tinsel, is tied round her brow, and her head is covered with a blanket. Without letting the cotton thread that encircles them touch the girl, four women stand with water-pots in their hands, and a fifth looses one end of the thread and ties it to the lucky pillar or muhurt-medh, and plants the post on one side of the doorway. By this time, at the boy's house, the Brahman priest has come, and is given a cocoanut, pieces of cocoa-kernel, thread, turmeric, a piece of yellow cloth, a winnowing fan, and rice. The priest sets two lighted lamps on a low wooden stool, and between the two lamps a bathing tub or ghangal. He picks up a winnowing fan, lays grains of rice in it, and filling a metal water-pot with cold water sets it on the rice. He spreads a few mango leaves on the water-pot or sets a cocoanut on it. He ties in a yellow cloth a few grains of rice, and some betelnut and turmeric. He daubs the bundle with redpowder and lays it in the winnowing fan beside the water-pot. The priest opens his almanac at a picture of Ganpati, tells the host to worship the picture, repeats verses, and the host sprinkles over the picture sandal rice and red and scented powder, lays betelnut and leaves and a copper coin before it, offers it sugar, and bows to it. When the worship of Ganpati is over the priest rolls up his almanac and lays it beside him. Then, after worshipping the winnowing fan and its contents and seeing that it is kept in a safe place, the priest goes home. A near relation of the girl, taking turmeric powder and accompanied by music, goes to the boy's house, makes over the turmeric to the people of the house and returns. The boy is seated on a low wooden stool in the midst of the five earthen pots, bathed, and dressed in a new waistcloth, a turban, and a shouldercloth. His forehead, like the girl's forehead, is marked with redpowder, and over the powder a few grains of rice are stuck. A tinsel chaplet is tied to his brow, and, as at the girl's house, the thread that was wound round the earthen pots is tied to the lucky pillar or muhurt-medh. The village barbers lay a cloth on the grinding stone or pata, and worship it by laying grains of rice before it. To the wooden pestle or musal are then tied a betel leaf, a millet stalk, and a needle, and it is set in the mortar. The women of the house seat the boy in front of the mortar on a low wooden stool, take cocoanut oil in a metal cup, and dipping mango leaves in the oil let it drop on his head. The washerwoman, holding the pestle in her left hand, stands in front of the boy singing songs. A chaplet of flowers, a cocoanut, and a few grains of wet pulse are sent to the village god with the prayer that he may be kind, that the marriage ceremony may pass without mishap, and that he may give the marriage guests a safe return to their homes. When this is over the guests are treated to a dinner. After dinner the boy is seated either on a horse or a bullock, and, with about twice as many male and female relations and friends as he promised to bring, goes with music to the girl's village temple, where he lays a cocoanut before the village god and asks his blessing. After leaving the temple, the boy goes to the boundary of the girl's village.

On reaching the boundary a lemon is cut, waved round the boy's head, and thrown away, and his eyes are touched with cold water. One of the company going to the girl's house tells her father that the boy and his party are come. Then the girl's near relations and the chief men of the village go to meet the boy. At first the girl's brothers and uncles refuse to let him pass the village boundary. After a while they are given cocoanuts, betel nuts and leaves are handed round, they embrace, and while the musicians of both parties play their pipes, the boy and his friends are hurried to the village temple where he lays betelnut and leaves before the god and worships. He is then seated on a blanket spread outside of the temple. The village Mhar brings a horse and on it the boy is seated, and with music is led to the door of the girl's marriage hall. A ball of rice is waved over the boy's head and thrown on one side, and his eyelids are touched with water. Next the village barber comes, unrobes the boy, and bathes him in warm water. The girl's father dresses him in a new waistcloth, turban, and shouldercloth or shela, and the clothes the boy was wearing are given to the barber. Meanwhile three or four Brahmans draw red lines on the outer wall of the house near which the boy is seated, and the girl, dressed in a fine robe and her lap filled with a cocoanut a handful of wheat and a piece of cocoa-kernl, is taken outside and seated on the boy's left. The flower chaplets are taken off the boy and girl and thrown on the house-top or the roof of the marriage hall and new ones are tied to their brows. Toe-rings are put on the girl's feet and she is dressed in a bodice turned fore end backwards, badishep Anetham foenicatum is put in their mouths, yellow lines are drawn on a waistcloth, the boy and girl are set facing each other, and the waistcloth with the yellow lines is held between them. The villagers hold drawn swords over their heads and the guests and relations who surround the pair are each given a few grains of rice and warned not to sneeze, talk, or cough. Behind the girl stands her sister with lighted lamp in her hand, and behind the boy his brother with a lemon stuck on the point of a dagger. The Brahman repeats verses and at the end of the verses asks the girl's father to whose house he has given his daughter and he names the boy's father. Then both fathers are asked,' Have you both with free will given and received the girl;' and they reply, 'We have.' The guests throw rice over the couple, the musicians play, and the Brahmans are given money. The boy and girl are seated on the altar close to each other, the girl on the boy's left. Next the Brahman priest takes a metal plate and lays on it a lighted lamp and a handful of rice. A married woman takes some rice in both her hands and throws it on the knees, shoulders, and heads of the boy and girl, three times over the boy and twice over the girl. A copper coin is laid in the dish and the musicians play and sing songs. A new bathing tub or ghangal and water-pot or tambya are brought and filled with water and the girl's father pours water from the tub over the boy's feet. These pots, together with a turban, a waistcloth, and a bodice or robe are presented to the boy, and this concludes the ceremony. The Brahmans from both houses are presented with 5s. (Rs. 2�) and the guests with betelnut. The hems of the boy's and girl's clothes are tied together by the girl's sister, and they are led into the house. They bow before the family gods, and the boy takes one of the gods and hands it to his brother. On their return to the wedding booth they are seated on the altar, the girl to the left of the boy. The girl's mother brings a bathing tub or ghangal and cooked food and sets them before the boy. She covers the food with a new winnowing fan, and over the fan sets, a lighted lamp, a cocoanut, and betelnut and leaves. The boy's relations come with a bodice and lay it near the betelnut on the winnowing fan. The girl's mother removes the winnowing fan with its contents and asks the boy and girl to taste the food. If the boy is the first to taste the food it is well; if he is not he is laughed at and asked whether he is going to eat his wife's leavings. When the meal is over the guests are served with a dinner, and either stay over night or go to their homes. After the guests are gone, to the wrists of both the boy and the girl turmeric roots are tied and they go to bed, the boy sleeping with the men outside and the girl with the women in the house. On the second day the boy is seated on the altar, and the girl stands behind him with turmeric powder in her hand, and tries to force some of it into his mouth. The boy keeps his mouth tight closed and tries to prevent her, and, if she succeeds in forcing some into his mouth he is laughed at and asked if he is hungry. Then the boy stands the girl, and tries with his left hand to force some turmeric into her mouth. He seldom succeeds, and is laughed at and called hijda or impotent. Next the boy holds a betelnut in his hand and naming the girl asks her to take it from him. They struggle and the girl generally manages to snatch it away. Then the girl hold a betelnut in her closed fist and naming the boy asks him to take it. He tries but generally fails. He then begs her to let him have the nut and she gives it to him.

After this five or six betelnuts are laid in a line and a little molasses is sprinkled over each. The boy and girl watch the nuts and each tries to be first in picking the nut on which fly first settles. The one who gathers the most nuts wins. When this trial of luck is over the boy and girl are seated face to face in the marriage hall on low wooden stools and a plate full of water is set between them. Redpowder is dropped into the water, and the girl holds her open hands over it at some distance. The boy spreads his hands and the girl's sister drops from her hand into the boy's hands a piece of turmeric, a betelnut, and a ring and he in turn lets them drop into the girl's hands and she into the plate. If the ring lies in the plate more towards the boy's side he takes it, if it falls towards the girl's side he asks her to make it over to him. Then the boy puts the remains of the pounded turmeric and cooked rice into the mouths of his sisters and brothers-in-law. Next both he and the girl are bathed, served with a light meal, and given warm water to wash their hands and feet. To counteract any attack of the evil eye, a Jangam or Lingayat priest breaks the tops off two new earthen jars, whitewashes the outside of the bottoms, and fills them with ashes. He takes two sticks, rolls round each a piece of cloth soaked in oil, and lighting the oiled cloths plants them in the ashes. He decks the jars with flower garlands, gives the boy and his mother whose hair hangs loose down her back a lemon to hold, and sets one of the brokes jars on the head of the boy's mother and the other on the boy's head, and with music playing before them, and followed by the Jangam, who carries a cocoanut and an offering of cooked food, they walk to the side of some stream or pond. At intervals, as they go, the jangam takes one of the broken jars on his head, dances, and again makes it over to the boy or to his mother. When they reach the water-side the Jangam offers food to the broken jars, and with the point of the sword cuts off the burned part of the torches, and brings it home.

On their return the guests are- served with dinner. Before they begin to eat burning frankincense sticks are set in front of the boy's mother, scented powder is sprinkled over her hair, and a bathing tub or ghangal filled with cooked food is placed before her. the tub is covered with a winnowing fan, and a lighted lamp is placed over the fan. The mother's relations lay a bodice near the lamp is placed the girl's relations take away the winnowing fan which acts as to dine, to the bathing tub. In the place where the male guests are to dine, food is brought in a covered water-pot, and on the boy's father presenting 3d. to 1s. (2-8 as.) the cover is removed and the contents of both pots are distributed to the guests. When dinner is over betelnut is handed and the guests withdraw. The Jangam is paid 3d, (2 as.) and is presented with, some uncooked food and a cocoanut. On the third day at the boy's house a dinner is given to relations, friends, and villagers. On the fourth the turmeric that was tied to the hands of the boy and girl and the cocoanuts that were tied to the marriage hall to the right wrists of the boy and girl are unfastened. At two at night a procession starts, flower chaplets are tied, and the girl's lap is filled. The boy and girl are seated on horseback and taken to the village temple. The people of every house they pass present the boy with molasses and water, of which he eats and drinks a little and hands the rest to his wife, who eats and drinks a little and returns what remains. When he reaches his house-door a woman comes from the house, breaks a cocoanut, waves it over the boy and girl, and throws the pieces away. On entering his house the boy and girl are taken before the house gods, bow repeatedly before them, and retire. The girl stays for four days and on the fifth is sent back to her father's, the woman who came with her receiving a bodice. About four months after the marriage the boy's father consults a Brahman, and, on a lucky day, sends to the girl's house a couple of women and a man bearing a robe and bodice, some wheat, and a cocoanut. The girl's mother receives the present, dresses the girl in the robe and bodice, fills her lap with the wheat and cocoanut, and sends her to the boy's house in charge of an elderly woman with cooked rice, vegetables, and cakes. When these gifts reach the boy's house his parents distribute the cakes and food among the villagers, and the girl's companions are kept four to seven days. This is called the house-filling or gharbharne. After this the girl is free to be brought at any time from her parents' to the boy's house. Widows are generally allowed to marry: but some families think widow-marriage disreputable and do not practise it. As a rule only widowers marry widows and the children do not get so large a share of the property as the children of the first marriage. Under the Peshwa, Kunbis rarely practised sati or widow-burning. [Trans, Bom. Lit. Soc. III. 215.]

When a Kunbi girl comes of age, she is seated in a room by herself, and for three days neighbours and relations bring her presents of cooked food. On the fourth day she is bathed and word is sent to her parents and a cocoanut and a few grains of wheat are laid in her lap. Near relations are asked to a dinner, and when they come they present the girl with a cocoanut. In the evening the girl is sent to sleep in a separate room and the wife's brother or Other near relation leads the boy to the room and shuts him in.

When a Kunbi is on the point of death his son or his wife lays the dying man's head on their right knee, and lets a few drops of water shall into his mouth. Money and grain are given to the poor, and a cow or from 1s. to 10s. (Rs. � -5) in cash is given to the family Brahman, to help the flight of the soul to heaven. When the dying man has, breathed his last the women of the house raise a loud cry and dishevel their hair. A small piece of gold is put into the dead mouth, and, after an hour or two, friends and neighbours come and mourn. A near relation is sent to buy three earthen jars, cloth, betel leaves, red-powder, and bamboos, and at the burning ground the village Mhar gathers 1000 to 1500 cowdung cakes. The barber shave the chief mourner's moustache and is paid 6d. (4 as.) A fire is lighted outside of the house and rice is cooked in one earthen pot and water heated in another. The body is carried out of the house and laid on the house steps with the feet towards the roadside. The head is rubbed with butter and washed with warm water. The body is covered with a sheet or a piece of cloth, laid on the bier, and shrouded from head to foot in another sheet. On the sheet red and scented powder are sprinkled and the chief mourner is given a piece of cloth or utri to tie round his chest. He holds the jar of boiled rice in his left hand and a jar with burning live coal or cowdung cakes in his right hand and starts walking from the house. Four near relations lift the bier and follow him calling, Shriram Jayram Jayjayram. Alongside of the body near the head the wife, mother's or other near kinswoman walks by the body fanning it. After the bearers a band of kinsmen and kinswomen, the men generally bareheaded and barefooted walk joining in the cry. [Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. III. 216] On the waynear the burning ground the bearers change places, those in front going behind and those behind coming in front. On reaching the river near the burning ground the bier is lowered, and the chief mourner dashes the jar with the burning cakes or live coal on the ground, and beats his mouth with the back of his open hand. The mourners gather the burning cakes in a heap and cover them with some cowdung cakes. Then each takes a cowdung cake and lays it on the corpse's breast. The corpse's waiststring is cut. The chief mourner sets fire to the pile, and others help him in heaping the cakes round the body. They go a little distance and sit chatting and laughing till the body is half burnt, when they bathe and go home. While the funeral party are away women smear with cowdung the whole house of mourning, they spread rice flour over the spot where the deceased breathed his last, and set a lighted lamp on it and cover the lamp with a bamboo basket. On their return the funeral party examine the spot where the rice flour is strewn to see if there are any marks like the prints of an animal's foot If the footprint of any animal, or if any mark which bears any resemblance to an animal's footprint is seen, it is believed that the spirit of the dead has passed into the animal to which the foot belongs. On the third day the chief mourner and other relations go to the burning ground, and the chief mourner sprinkles the ashes first with water and then with cow's urine, and gathering the bones and ashes throws them into the river. He make an earthen ling on the spot where the deceased was burnt sets round it five hollow castor oil or erand stem s, and close by fixes five yellow-coloured flags and earthen pots. In the pots he puts milk and water and through hollow pipes lets the water drop on the ground, saying, ' Let us give the dead water to drink.' When all have poured out water they burn frankincense and offer cooked food and rice flour balls to the dead. They then bow to the offering and ask crows to come and feed on it. If the crows come and eat, the soul is believed to be happy and to have entered a new birth, If the crows refuse, their refusal to eat causes the mourners the greatest fear. The mourners call on the dead to know why he is unhappy and assure him that he has nothing to fear, and that they will take care of his family, his house, and his goods. Every means is tried to persuade the crows to eat the food. If nothing succeeds, after waiting for a long time, one of them makes a clay figure of a crow and with it touches the offering, and the party go home. The crow's refusal to eat is believed to show that the soul of the dead remains at large and becomes a ghost or demon. For thirteen days after death the family is unclean and in mourning. The chief mourner lays aside his turban and shoes, sleeps on the ground, drinks no milk and eats nothing sweet, lets his hair grow, and stays at home giving up business and never visiting the temple. On the tenth day the whole house is cowdunged and on the eleventh and twelfth the friends and relations meet at the mourner's house and the nearest relations present the son and his mother with a turbab, waistcloth, and robe, and calling a Brahman offer rice balls and ask the four bier bearers to dine. In the month of Bhadrapad or September on the day on which the deceased died, a feast is given to relations, friends, and castefellows.

In each village the Kunbis have a headman to whom they refer caste disputes which he settles at mass meetings of the castemen. Some send their boys to school. As a class Kunbis are poor.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Kolaba District Gazetteer (1883))

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Satara District Gazetteer (1884))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Ka'sa'rs literally Brass-makers, now Glass-Bangle Hawkers, are returned as numbering 2755 and as found all over the district They say they came into the district from Ahmadnagar, Kolhapur, Sangli, Miraj, and Satara, during the Peshwas supremacy (1713-1817). They are divided into Maratha and Jain Kasars. The following details apply to the Maratha Kasars. They are dark, middle-sized, and thin. They speak Marathi and most of them live in houses of the better sort, one or two storeys high, with walls of brick and tiled roofs. Their staple food is millet, pulse, vegetables and occasionally rice; they also eat fish and the flesh of sheep, goats poultry, hares, deer, and partridges, and drink both country and foreign liquor. They smoke tobacco and hemp. The men wear the waistcloth, coat, waistcoat, shouldercloth, and Maratha or Deccan Brahman turban and shoes. The women dress in a Maratha bodies and a robe whose skirt is drawn back between the feet and the end tucked in behind. The men wear the 'top-knot, the moustache, and sometimes the whiskers, but not the beard. The women tie the hair in a knot behind, but do not wear false hair or deck their hair with flowers. Their clothes are both country and Europe made and they have no special liking for gay colours. Like Marathas they wear ornaments of silver gold and queensmetal. They are hardworking thrifty, even-tempered, hospitable, and orderly. They deal in glass and wax bangles and make lac bracelets. In the morning and again about midday they move about with bundles of bracelets slung across their shoulders and in their hands, crying Ghya bangdya, Have bangles. The bangles are of many kinds, are sold single, and vary in price from 1d. to �1 (? anna - Rs.10) the dozen. The names of the chief sorts are ambali, anar, anaras, asmani, bilori, chai, champa, dalambi, ducha, gajra, galas, gandaki, ghas, gulab, gulkhar, hirva, jaributi, jhirmi, kachekairi, kajli, kanji, kapiv, kathva, khula, dalimbi, khuldmotia, koldvatar, morchut, morpisi, motia, motikdapiv, nagmodi, narangi, nurirat, parvari, phulguldb, piroz, pistai, pivla, rajvargi, rashi, sakarka, soneri, tulshi, and valshet. The bangles are put on the buyer's wrists by the seller, and if a bangle breaks while the hawker is putting it on the loss is his. Women set great store on tight-fitting bracelets and some Kasars can work the hand in such a way as to force over them the most astonishingly small bracelets. Kasar women and children help the men in their calling, making and selling bangles and putting them on the buyers' wrists. These Kasars also make and sell copper and brass vessels. They are Brahmanic Hindus and have house images. Their family god is Khandoba and their chief goddess is Bhavani of Tuljapur. Their priests are Deccan Brahmans. They make pilgrimages to Pandharpur, Jejuri, and sometimes to Benares. Mahashivratra in February and the lunar elevenths or ekadashis of every month are their fast days. Their feasts are Shimga or Holi in March-April, New Year's Day or Gudi-padva in April, Nag-panchmi or the Cobra's Fifth in July, Ganesh-chaturthi or Ganpati's Fourth in August, Dasara in October, and Divali in October-November. They have no spiritual teacher or guru. When a Kasar's child sickens its parents set cooked rice, curds, an egg, redlead, a lemon, and needles on a bamboo basket or padli, and wave the basket round the child's face, and lay it at the street corner, a favourite spirit haunt. Or they wave a fowl round the sick child's head and set the fowl free. They worship the goddess Satvai on the fifth day after the birth of a child and name the child on the twelfth. They clip a boy's hair between one and five," marry their girls before they are twelve, and their boys between twelve and twenty-four.

They burn their dead and mourn ten days. They allow widow marriage, and practise polygamy; polyandry is unknown. They have no headman and decide social disputes at meetings of the castemen. They send their children to school, keeping boys at school till they are twelve or thirteen and girls till they are married. They are a steady class.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Satara District Gazetteer (1884))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Khatris, or Weavers, are returned as numbering 460 and as found over the whole district. They say they were originally Kshatriyas who to avoid Being slain by Parashuram were told by the goddess Hinglaj to assume the name of Khatris and to take to weaving. They cannot tell when and whence they came into the district. These are divided into Somvanshis, Surtis, and Suryavanshis, who do not eat together or intermarry. The surnames of the Somvanshais, to whom the following particulars belong, are Chavhan, Gopal, Jhare, Khode, Khosandar, Povar, and Valnekar; people bearing the same surname do not intermarry. Their leading family stocks or gotras are Bharadvaj, Jamadgani, Narad, Parashar, Valmik, and Vashishth; people having the same gotra cannot intermarry. The names in common use among men are Balkriskna, Pandu, Ramchandra, and Vithal; and among women Bhima, Lakshmi, Tuka, and Yamuna. They do not differ from Deshasth Brahmans in face, figure, or bearing. The speak Marathi but their home tongue is a mixture of Marathi and Gujarati. Most of them live in houses of the better sort, mud and brick built, with one or two storeys and tiled roofs. Their house goods include metal and earthen vessels, cots, boxes, blankets, carpets, and bedding. Their staple food is millet, split pulse, vegetables, and a preparation of chillies or tikhal. They eat fish and the flesh of sheep, goats, and fowls, and drink liquor. Both men and women dress like Deccan Brahmans. They are clean, neat, thrifty, sober, and hardworking. They weave robes, waistcloths, and bodices. They sell the robes at �1 4s, to �5 (Rs. 12-50), and waist-cloths and pitambars at �1 2s. to �10 (Rs. 11 -100), and earn 16s. to �3 (Rs. 8-30) a month. Besides weaving they string on wire or thread gems and pearls, make fringes, threads for necklaces, tassels, netted work, and hand and waist ornaments. Their women and children help them in their calling. They work from seven to twelve and again from two to 3ix or seven. They worship the usual Brahmanic gods and goddesses and their family goddess is Bhavani of Tuljapur. Their priests are Deshasth Brahmans who officiate at their houses. They keep the regular fasts and feasts and make pilgrimages to Alandi, Benares, Kondanpur, Pandharpur, and Tuljapur. On the fifth day after the birth of a child some worship a grindstone and rolling-pin and others a clay horse with a rider. In front of the horse are placed five millet stems about six inches long wrapped in rags and the whole is worshipped by the midwife and offered sugared milk or khir and cakes or telchya. Five to seven dough lamps are placed near it and outside the mother's room on either side of the door are drawn ink or coal figures whose brows are daubed with redpowder. These also are worshipped. On the twelfth day five married women are asked to dine and the child is laid in the cradle and named. Female relations and friends make presents of clothes to the child and they leave with a present of wheat and gram boiled together and packets of betelnut and leaves. They clip a boy's hair when between one and five years old and gird him with the sacred thread before he is ten. They marry their girls before they are eleven and their boys before they are twenty-five. They born their dead, and allow widow marriage and polygamy Bat not polyandry. They hold caste councils and send their boys to school. As a class they are well-to-do.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Kolis are returned as numbering 42,829 and as found over the whole district. Most of them cannot tell whether they are Kolis or Kunbis and if Kolis to what class of Kolis they belong. They are divided into Chumbles, Konkan, and Akarmase Kolis, who eat together but do not intermarry. The following particulars apply to Konkan Kolis. They say they came from the Konkan about seventy-five years ago. Their surnames are Chavhan, Dalvi, Gaikvad, Kamble, More, and Vaghle. The names in common use among men are Ganpati, Krishna, Maruti, and Rama; and among women Bhagu, Chima, Dhondi, and Lakshmi; people having the same surname and guardian or devak cannot intermarry. They look and speak like Kunbis and resemble them in house dress and food. They are husbandmen, labourers, house-servants, gardeners, and water-drawers. They are fruit vegetable and grass sellers and tile-turners. The women and children help the men in the work. Their chief family god is Khandoba of Jejuri; and they also worship Bahiroba, Kalkai, Janchi, and Jokai. Their priests are Deshasth Brahmans whom they show great respect. They make pilgrimages to Alandi, Benares, Jejuri, Pandharpur, and keep the usual Brahmanic fasts and feasts. Kolis marry their girls between twelve and sixteen, and their boys before they are twenty-five. When a man thinks it is time his son should marry he looks for a suitable girl. When he has found a good match for his son he sends an elderly person to the girl's house, and when they agree the boy's father goes to the girl's and tells her parents that his relations approve of the match. Then, some elderly persons of the boy's and girl's family go to an astrologer and giving him the boy's and the girl's names ask him to choose lucky days for the turmeric-rubbing and for the marriage. 

The astrologer consults his almanac and names lucky days. After two or three days, the women of the boy's family go in the evening to the girl's with pulse, molasses, and betelnut and leaves, and, making over those things to the women of the house, ask the girl's relations and neighbours to come to the feast, and taking betel leaves and a little sugar lay them before the girl's house gods. Other betel leaves and sugar are kept ready and presented to the women of the boy's family according to the family rank or man. When the ceremony is finished pulse and liquor are served. A day before the turmeric-rubbing earthen jars are brought from a potter's, and marked with turmeric. On the turmeric-rubbing day the boy is rubbed with turmeric and bathed and told to bow before the house gods. A marriage porch is built in front of the house, turmeric is powdered and laid in a cup, and as the time named by the astrologer draws near a woman lights a lamp and sets it in a dish along with a cup containing turmeric powder, a box of redpowder, and a few grains of rice. Then a quartz or rice flour square is traced on the floor, a low wooden stool is set in the square, and mango branches are hung from one of the beams of the porch. Five women take grains of rice, sprinkle them on the lines which have been traced on the floor, and sing. The boy is seated on a stool, and near him a maid of honour or karavli, generally his sister, and five married women rub him with turmeric. When the turmeric-rubbing is over they mark his brow with redpowder and stick grains of rice on the powder. The women guests wave a copper coin round the boy's head and give it to the musicians. Another square is traced in front of the house, and a handmill is set in the square, a flower is tied to its handle, and about half a pound of udid pulse is ground by married women. When they have ground the pulse the stone is taken outside and set in the booth, and the boy and is sister leave their seats. A quartz square is traced in one corner of the marriage porch, and three low wooden stools are set in a line. On the first stool the father sits dressed in a turban, waistcloth, and shouldercloth; on the stool to his left sits the mother, and next to her the boy. At this part of the ceremony the boy's father and mother are specially called varmavla and varmavli, that is the bridegroom's father and the bridegroom's mother. Then a married woman brings a plate with a lighted lamp, a box of redpowder betelnut and leaves, walnuts and almonds, and a few grains of rice, and sets them on the floor in front of the boy. She next brings one of the marked earthen jars from the house, fills it with cold water, and setting a cocoanut in the mouth of it, hangs it. in a coir sling to one of the posts of the porch in front of the mother. The Brahman priest touches the brows of the mother and father sticks grains of rice on their brows, and repeats verses, tying together the hems of the father's and mother's clothes. A woman brings a hatchet or kurad, a pulse cake or vada, and wafer-biscuits a papad, and ties them to the hatchet; the father lays the hatchet on his shoulders and walks outside of the booth followed by his wife, who carries the plate with the lighted lamp. The father cuts a branch of a fig-tree or umbar, and sets, it in the ground in the booth. The Brahman priest repeats texts, rube the branch with turmeric and redpowder, and asks the father also to rub it. When the rubbing is over the father mother and son go into the house, the priest retires, and the guests are feasted. All this is done both at the girl's and at the boy's. The next ceremony is the lap-filling or oti-bharan. In the evening a party of married men and women from the boy's take, in a bamboo basket the ornaments which have been made for the girl, a cocoanut, two betelnuts and leaves, five dates and almonds, a plate with a lighted lamp on it, and a cup of turmeric, and go to the girl's house with music. At the girl's the men are seated in the booth and the women are seated inside the house. Then the men tell the girl's father that they are come to fill the bride's lap and he asks them to fill it. The girl is seated in a square and rubbed with the turmeric or halad that was brought from the boy's. A lucky thread or mangalsutra is tied round her neck, she is decked with ornaments, and her lap is filled with articles brought from the boy's house. The guests are served with sugar and betelnut by the boy's and girl's fathers and they retire. Early next morning at the boy's in the porch a square is traced. At each corner of the square a water-pot or tambya is set, filled with water, and the boy is seated on a low wooden stool in the middle. Four or five married women surround the boy and behind him stands his sister holding her hands together with upturned palms. The five women sing songs and pour water on to the girl's palms from which it keeps dropping on the boy's head. This goes on till the water in the four pots is finished when the boy puts on a fresh cloth and goes into the house followed by the women. In the house five squares are traced on the floor and in one of the squares a low wooden stool is set and the boy is seated on it. Wreaths of flowers are wound round a copper frying pan, betelnuts and leaves are laid in the pan, and it is set in front of the boy. A piece of flax and some betel leaves are tied to a small stick, and the five women, grasping the stick and singing songs, thrust it into an oil cup and touch the floor, the pan, some article in the name of the family god, and lastly the boy's head. A square is traced and a wooden' stool is set in the middle Of the square and the boy is seated on the stool. A barber sits facing the boy and asks a married woman to rub the boy's brow with redpowder and stick grains of rice on the powder. After she is done the barber shaves the boy's head. After the boy's head is shaved, the women guests wave a copper coin (� a.) round the boy's head, and give it to the barber who retires. Five married women, taking four earthen pots, go to the nearest well and with music draw water. Another woman traces a square in the booth, and the women, bringing the four water-pots from the well, set one of them at each corner of the square. A cotton thread is passed several times round the necks of the water-pots and a grindstone is set in the middle of the square. While the five women sing, the boy's sister, followed by the boy, walks five times round the square. Then the boy sits on the grindstone in the middle of the square and is bathed while women sing. Except the shaving, all these ceremonies take place at the girl's house with the same details. The boy is next decked with jewels, and a silk-bordered waist cloth, a coat, and a turban, and adorned with wedding ornaments. A horse is brought to the porch door, square is traced in front of the horse, and a cocoanut is set in the square. The boy is taken before the house gods and after bowing to them bows to the horse before mounting it. When the procession draws near the girl's they halt. The boy's family priest goes on alone and sits on the girl's veranda and warns the girl's, people not to lose time in meeting the bridegroom as the lucky moment is near. Meanwhile the procession moves on. When it reaches the girl's house the girl's brother takes a cocoanut in his hands and goes to meet the bridegroom. The brother is lifted up close to the bridegroom, he squeezes the bridg room's ear, and they embrace. The bridegroom alights, cuts with a knife a string which has been long across the doorway, walks into the booth, and is seated on a low wooden stool. The girl's father comes with a pot of water and another brings a pot of oil and the father touches the boy's feet with the two pots and presents him with a waistcloth. The gents take their seats and a woman draws a square and in it lays a bell-metal plate on which the boy is made to stand with his face to, the east. The astrologer marks the time with the help of a water-clock, which is a metal cup with a hole in the bottom floating in a jar of water. Another bell-metal plate is set in front of the boy and a cloth is held before him. The girl is brought in and made to stand in the second plate. The guests stand round the boy and girl with grains of rice in their hands, and the priest repeats marriage verses. At the lucky moment the priest stops, and throws grains of rice over the heads of the boy and girl and they are husband and wife. The guests throw grains of rice over the boy's and girl's heads and the guests clap their hands. The boy and girl are then taken to bow before the house gods, and after receiving packets of betel-nut and leaves the guests retire. The boy and girl, with near relations who have been asked to dine, feast, and tying the hems of their garments together, the boy takes his bride to his house At the boy's house they bow before the house gods and return to the girl's. Next morning the boy and girl play a game of odds and evens with betelnuts and feed each other. A dinner is given, and after the dinner is over the boy takes his bride and goes in procession to his father's. When they reach the house, the boy's sister shuts the door from within, and when the boy asks her let him in, she refuses until he promises to give his daughter in marriage to her son. The guests retire, and the marriage ceremonies end with a feast. The boy and girl are led upstairs and their marriage ornaments are taken off and tied to a beam Then the boy and girl call one another by their names and come downstairs. The marriage gods are bowed out. the marriage porch is pulled down, and the marriage is over. When a girl comes of age she is seated by herself for three days. On the fourth day the boy's father presents her with a new robe and bodice and the girl's parents present the boy with a new turban and sash After the girl has put on her new clothes the boy's mother fills her lap with grains of rice and a cocoanut, and the boy and girl, with the hems of their garments tied together, bow before the house gods. As many of the elders of both houses as may be present bow before the gods. A feast of sweet cakes or puranpolis is held when only the near relations and friends of both the boy's and girl's houses are called, and, after they have dined, the boy and girl are shut in a room and the guests retire. 

On the fifth day after the birth of a child a grindstone is placed in the mother's room and over it is laid a blank sheet of paper, a pen, some ink, and the knife with which the child's navel cord was cut, and worshipped by one of the elder women of the house. Close to these articles either bread and split pulse or mutton and liquor are laid over the grind-stone, and dough lamps are set and lighted near the four feet of the cot on which the mother is lying. The house-people and any near relations who have been called are asked to dine, and the mother and midwife keep awake during the whole night. On the sixth day the stone slab is again worshipped, bread and split pulse are offered to it, and, except the blank sheet of paper, the pen ink penknife and grindstone are thrown into the river. A woman is held; to be unclean for ten days after child-birth. On the eleventh, the house is cowdunged, the clothes and the cot are washed, and the mother and child are bathed. On the twelfth, the mother lays five pebbles outside of the house, and worships them with flowers, and hangs a paper cradle over the pebbles. Frankincense is burnt before them and a goat is slain. A feast is held and in the evening neighbour women lay the child in a cradle, and give it four or five names. The first name that is mentioned becomes the child's name; the rest are known as palnyatli-nave or cradle-names. A song is sung and the guests retire each with a handful of wet gram and a pinch of sugar. A boy's hair is cut for the first time when he is more than a month and less than two years old. At the hair-clipping the goddess Satvai is worshipped. A goat is killed and its head is buried in front of the goddess. The ceremony ends with a feast to which the barber is asked and this is the only payment he gets. The hair-clipping ceremony is performed either in the house or in the outlying lands of the village. When a Koli dies the women wail and the friends and relations busy themselves in preparing a bier. The corpse is laid on the bier, raised on the shoulders of four male relations, and the chief mourner walks in front of the bier, carrying in a rope sling an earthen jar with fire in it. When they reach the burning ground, the mourner lays the body on the pile and sets fire to it. After the body is burnt the mourners bathe and go to their homes. They mourn ten days. At the end they present the priest with money, metal vessels, an umbrella, and a pair of shoes, and all the members of the dead man's family bathe and the mourning is over. A Brahman sprinkles a mixture of cow's urine, dung, milk, butter, and curds on the mourners and they are pure and feast the caste. They hold caste councils. A few send their boys to school for a short time, but as a class they are poor and show no signs of rising.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Satara District Gazetteer (1884))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Kamathis are returned as Numbering 1187 and as found over the whole district except in Junnar, Indapur, and Purandhar. They seem to be of Telugu origin and are said to have come from the Nizam's country about a hundred years ago. They say that when they came the Peshwa gave them rent-free lands. The names in common use among men are Ayalu, Erappa, Gangaram, Krishna, Narsappa, Phakira, Posheti, and Yellappa; and among women, Amalubai, Akubai, Jamanibai, Saitri, and Yalubai. The honour-giving appa or father is added to men's names and bai or lady to women's names. The commonest surnames are Dasarkulu, Kutolu, Mandactalu, Pilaleli, Pautkudolu, and Totoladu. Persons having the same surname can intermarry. They form one class. They are dark, tall, and well-made. The men shave the head except the top-knot, and the face except the moustache. They wear whiskers but not the beard. They live in untidy middle-class houses one or two storeys high, with brick walls and tiled roofs. Their house goods include boxes, cradles, cots, carpets, blankets, mats, and metal or earthen vessels. They have no house servants, but keep cattle and pet animals. They are moderate eaters and good cooks. Their favourite dishes are sour, and their staple food is Indian millet bread, pulse, and pot herbs. 

They do not bathe or worship their gods every day but sit and eat their morning meal as soon as they return from their work. They bathe every second or third day, and worship their gods on all lunar elevenths or ekadashis. On holidays and when they can afford it, they eat the flesh of sheep, goats, poultry, deer, and fish, and drink liquor often to excess. They also drink bhang or hemp-water and eat opium and smoke ganja or hemp-flowers and tobacco. The women tie their hair in a knot at the back of the head; they wear neither flowers nor false hair. The dress both of men and women is dirty and careless. The men wear a waistcloth, a loincloth, a coat, a Maratha turban, and a pair of shoes. The women wear the robe with the skirt drawn back between the feet in Marathi fashion. Of ornaments inen wear the earrings called bhikbalis and finger rings; and women the nose-ring called nath, the necklace called vajartika, the wristlets called gots, and the toerings called jodvis. Kamathis as a class are dirty in their habits, hard-working, treacherous, irritable, and vain. Most are masons and house builders, some make cigars, and others work as labourers. Boys of eight begin to help their fathers. Women mind the house and work as labourers. Masons work from six to eleven, go home to  take a meal, are back at work by two, and work till six. They are busiest between November and June. On personal security they can borrow 10s. to �5 (Rs. 5-50) at twelve to twenty-four percent a year. 

They rank with Marathas, and eat from Brahmans, Marathas, and Lingayats. They are religious, worshipping Bahiroba, Bhavani, Khandoba Lakshmi, Narsoba, Shankar, Virabhadra, and Vyankoba. They make pilgrimages to Vithoba of Pandharpur, Dnyanoba of A'landi Bhavani of Tuljapur, and Vyankoba of Giri. They worship all village, local, and boundary gods. They keep the usual Brahmanic holidays and fasts. Their priest is a Telang Brahman, whom they highly respect and who officiates at all their ceremonies. They ask him to dine, wash his hands and feet, rub his brow with sandal paste, present him with flower garlands and nosegays, and bow before him. He tells them to be just in their dealings, to give to the poor, and to read good books. When ho has finished his dinner he is given 1s. to 10s. (Rs. 1-5) in cash and takes his leave. When the Teacher dies they choose some other pious man as his successor. They believe in witchcraft evil spirits and soothsaying. When a person is possessed they make vows to their gods and fulfil them soon after the recovery of the sick. 

Early marriage polygamy and widow-marriage are allowed and practised, polyandry is unknown. When a woman is brought to bed a midwife is called. She digs a pit or mori to hold the bathing water and cuts the child's navel cord. Turmeric paste and vermillion are scattered the front of the pit, and the child and the mother are bathed. The navel cord is put in an earthen vessel and buried in the pit. For three days the child sucks one end of a rag whose other end rests in a saucer of honey, and the mother is fed on rice and clarified, butter. On the fourth day the mother begins to suckle the child. On the fifth a stone slab or pata is placed near the bathing pit, a square is marked on the slab with lines of rice, and a silver image of Satvai is set in the square, a lemon is set at each corner of the stone slab and a fifth lemon and a cocoanut are laid be fore the image. One of the house women lays before the goddess turmeric powder, vermillion, cotton thread, rice and pulse, or boiled mutton if the mother is a Vaishnav, as they slaughter a goat in honour of Satvai. Female friends and relations are feasted, a shoe is laid under the child's pillow, and women keep watch till morning. The impurity caused by the birth lasts ten days. On the twelfth women neighbours meet at the house, set five wheat-floor cakes under the cradle which is hung with ropes from the ceiling, and turmeric powder and vermillion are handed round. The child is named, and the women guests are feasted. After dinner they are given rolls of betel leaves and withdraw. After the fourteenth day Satvai is again worshipped. Five stones are placed together and turmeric powder and vermillion are laid before them. A goat is killed if the mother is a Vaishnav, and friends and relations are feasted. The mother puts on new bangles and from that time is allowed to follow her every-day housework. The boy's hair is cut for the first time when he is two years old. He is seated on his father's lap and his head is shaved by the village barber who receives 3/4d. to 1�d. (1/2-1a.). Boys are married between ten and twenty-five, and girls between two and twelve. The girl's father plans the match and asks the consent of the boy's father. When they agree to the terms, the boy's father visits the girl and presents her with a robe and bodice. Her brow is marked with vermillion, and a packet of sugar is placed in her hands. This is called the magani or asking. One to five days before the day fixed by the priest for the marriage, the bride is brought to the bridegroom's and rubbed with turmeric paste. The bridegroom is rubbed after the girl, and both are bathed in warm water. The bride is given a robe and bodice and her brow is decked with a network of flowers. Three earthen pots are brought into the boy's house, two are set in front of the boy and girl and the third behind them. All the pots are filled with rice mixed with vermillion, flowers turmeric paste and V capital are laid before them, and they are made devaks or marriage guardians. In the booth before the boy's house a marriage altar or bahule is raised but no pots are placed near it. No guardian or devak is installed at the bride's. When the lucky time draws near the couple are made to stand face to face on the bahule or altar with a curtain held between them. 

The priest, a Telang Brahman, repeats texts and vermillion-tinged rice is thrown over the couple. Marriage threads are passed through two silver rings and tied to the right wrist of the bridegroom and the left wrist of the bride. The lucky thread is fastened round the bride's neck. One man takes the bride and another the bridegroom on his shoulder and they dance in a circle scattering redpowder. When the dance is over the boy's and girl's garments are knotted together and they bow before the family gods in the house. The bridegroom's sister or sister-in-law unties their clothes, the Brahman priest receives 2s. (Re. 1) from the father of the bridegroom, betel is served, and the guests withdraw. For four days friends and relations are feasted. On the fourth the bride and bridegroom receive presents of dresses from their fathers-in-law, and their brows are decked with palm-leaf brow-horns or bashings. In the evening of the wedding day the varat or bridegroom's procession, with music and a band of friends, starts from the boy's house, moves through the streets, and returns. The priest comes, the boy and girl untie each other's marriage wristlets, and, together with silver rings, the wristlets are thrown into an earthen vessel filled with water. The boy and girl are told to pick them out, whoever is quickest is applauded and will be ruler. At night a gondhal dance is performed, and the marriage is over. When a girl comes of age she sits apart for three days. On the fourth she is bathed, a cocoanut, and rice are laid in her lap, she and her husband receive presents of dress from their fathers-in-law, and friends and relations are feasted. 

They either bury or burn their dead, and except that they hold no death-day feasts they follow all the rites observed by Marathas. Among them a death costs 12a. to �1 (Rs. 6-10). They have a strong caste feeling and settle social disputes at caste meetings. Breaches of caste rules are punished by fines of 2s. 6d. to �6 (Rs.1�-60). They send their boys and girls to school till they learn Marathi reading and writing. They are pushing, ready to take to new employments, and fairly off.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Ka'npha'tes, or Slit Ear Gosavis, are returned as numbering 123 and as found in Haveli, Bhimthadi, and Poona. They have no subdivisions. Their surnames are Chavhan, Rathod, Ghatge, Mule, Salunke, Shinde, and Shitale. The names in common use among men are Sambhu, Kashinath, Bhivnath, Rama, and Vithal; and among, women Bhima, Ganga, Nira, and Sita. They are a tall dark strong and robust people. The men wear the moustache, whiskers, and beard. They speak both Hindustani and Marathi. They live in huts of matting set on bamboo sticks. Except the dining plate and water-pot their vessels are of earth. They are a wandering class and move from village to village carrying their huts and goods on ponies and buffaloes. They always keep dogs. They eat fish and the flesh of sheep, goats, hare, deer, the wild hog, fowls, and partridges, and drink liquor. 

They are given to smoking hemp or ganja and eating opium. The men dress in an ochre-coloured Maratha turban, a loin or waistcloth, a shouldercloth, and sometimes a coarse waistcloth. They wear large thick ivory, clay, bone, or fish-scale earrings in the lobes of their ears and a necklace of rudraksha beads. The women wear a petticoat and bodice and braid their hair leaving it hanging down the back in plaits. They wear glass and queensmetal bangles and toe-rings, and a marriage-string or mangalsutra of black glass beads. They are beggars and earn their living by singing and playing on the guitar, Raja Gopichand being generally the hero of their songs. They are religious and their chief gods are Gorakhnath and Machhandranath. They keep the usual Brahmanic fasts and feasts and their priests are Deshasth Brahmans to whom they show great respect. They believe in sorcery and witchcraft and travel from place to place visiting all the chief places of pilgrimage. On the fifth day after a birth they feast five married women and ask a Brahman to give them a name for the child. 

They marry their girls after they come of age, and their boys when they are above twenty-five. The boy and girl are seated face to face on a quilt and the priest repeats marriage verses or mangalasthaks, and when the verses are finished throws grains of rice over their heads and ties together the hems of their garments. This knot is called Brahmagath or Brahma's knot; after it is tied nothing can separate them. They do not hold the cloth or antarpat between the boy and girl at the time of marrying them. Their widows marry and they allow polygamy, but not polyandry. They bury their dead and mourn twelve days. They are bound together as a body, have a headman or patil, do not send their boys to school, and are poor.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Kolhapur District Gazetteer(1886))

Kha'tiks, or Butchers, are returned as numbering 1985 and as found in towns and large villages. Their surnames are Ghatge, Puravalkar, Bhapte, and Shelke. They are active and intelligent. Formerly their business was confined to selling sheep and goats, the slaughtering work being done by Musalmans. Now Maratha Khatiks act as butchers as well as meat-sellers, while others are husbandmen. Socially Khatiks are lower than Kunbis who neither eat nor drink from their hands. Brahmans officiate at their marriages, and their manners and customs differ little from those of Kunbis. Their social disputes are settled by a headman or mehtar. They seldom send their boys to school, and are a thriving people.

Other Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Ahmednagar District Gazetteer(1884))

Kattais, or Leather-workers, are returned as numbering thirty-nine, and as found in Nevasa, Rahuri, Sangamner, and Shevgaon. They claim descent from Rohidas Chambhar the great worshipper of Vithoba of Pandharpur. They are old settlers and have no memory or tradition of an earlier home. Their customs are almost entirely local, but the use of sing at the end of men's names suggests that they are of Upper Indian origin. The names in common use among men are Bhansing Chhotesing, Chudaman, Durga, Gangasing, Hiraman, Jhamba, Kasiram, Maniram, Mohan, Phatru, Ramchandra, Ramsing, Sivakisan, Subharam, Tukaram, and Vitthalsing; and among women, Anandibai, Budhia, Chhoti, Dhania, Gangabai, Himiya, Jamnabai, Laliya, Lohabai, Maniya, and Parvatibai. The word karbhari or manager, chaudari or headman, and sing or warrior are added to men's names, and bai lady and mai mother to women's. Their usual surname is Doravare. Their family gods are Balaji of Tirupati, Devi of Tuljapur, Mahadev of Tryambakeshvar in Nasik, and Vithoba and Rakhamai of Pandharpur in Sholapur. They have no divisions and persons bearing the same surname can intermarry. They are dark strong and well-made, like Upper India Rajputs or Pardeshis, and can readily be known from Chambhars and other local castes. They speak Hindustani at home and Marathi abroad, and live in one-storeyed houses with brick and mud walls and tiled or thatched roofs. 

Their houses are generally dirty but their temples are clean. Their house goods include earth and metal vessels, bamboo baskets, grindstones, and working tools. They keep no servants, and rarely own cattle or pets. They are great eaters and poor cooks, and their staple food is bread and vegetables with sour dishes. Wheat cakes, rice, stuffed cakes, vegetables, and curds with clarified butter are among their dainties. They bathe and worship their temple images on holidays and fasts, before they take their morning meal. On other days they are not bound to worship or wash before eating. They eat the usual kinds of flesh except beef and pork and drink liquor on Shimga or Holi in March. They may take opium and smoke or drink hemp but they are moderate in the use of these indulgences. The men shave the head except the top-knot and the face except the eyebrows, moustache, and whiskers. Women tie the hair into a back-knot but never use flowers or false hair. The men wear a waist-cloth, a shouldercloth, a shirt, a Maratha turban, and a pair of shoes or country boots; the women dress in a petticoat or langha, a short sleeved bodice without a back, and cover the breast and shoulders with a sheet or odhni. Men wear no ornaments and women have theirs made in Marwari fashion. Both men and women have clothes in store for holidays and great occasions. They are dirty but orderly, hardworking, thrifty, and hospitable, and have a good name for honesty. They are hereditary shoe and harness makers and as their calling is well paid they take to no new pursuits. Their boys serve as apprentices to their fathers. Their monthly earnings vary from �1 4s. to �1 10s. (Rs. 12-15), but they run into debt by spending more than they can afford. They work from morning to evening with a short break at noon for food and rest. Their women mind the house and sift gold and silver dust from rubbish or ashes gathered at village goldsmiths' shops. Their calling is brisk at all seasons but they rest on holidays and fasts. They rank below Kunbis and above the impure classes. A family of five spends �1 4s. to �1 10s. (Rs.12-15) a month; a house costs �5 to �10 (Rs. 50-100) to build, and 3d. to 1s. (2-8 as.) a month to rent. A birth costs 12s. to 16s. (Rs. 6-8), a marriage �3 to �10 (Rs.30-100), and a death �2 10s. to �3 (Rs. 25-30). They are a religious people, worshipping Vyankatraman of Tirupati in North Arkot with special reverence, and respect local deities and visit their shrines on their fair days. Their priest is a Pardeshi Brahman from Upper India, who conducts their leading ceremonies. They belong to the Nath sect. Among Hindu holidays they keep Shimga in March, the Hindu New Year's Day in April, Akshatritiya in May, Rakhi Paurnima in August, Dasara in September, Divali in October, and Champashashthi in December. They fast on the lunar elevenths or Ekadashis of Ashadh or July and Kartik or October, on all Mondays, and on Shiv's Night or Mahashivratra in February. Their religious teacher is a Bairagi or ascetic whom in return for religious teaching they present with clothes, uncooked food, metal vessels, and cash. The teacher is generally succeeded by his favourite disciple. They believe in witchcraft, soothsaying, and evil spirits, and call in the help of Hindu exorcists or devrushis to scare the ghosts which haunt them. 

Early marriage polygamy and widow marriage are allowed and practised, and polyandry is unknown. On the fifth day after the birth of a child, Mother Sixth or Satvai is worshipped with flowers vermilion and food. The child is named and cradled on the twelfth, when caste people are feasted and the women who have been asked to the house are dismissed with packets of sugar and betel. Boys are married between fifteen and twenty-five and girls before they come of age. The fathers of the boy and girl arrange the match and meet at the house of an astrologer who compares the horoscopes of the pair and chooses a lucky day for the marriage. Before the marriage comes the betrothal, when the bridegroom presents the bride with a packet of sugar or sakharpuda, a roll of betel, a robe and bodice, and ornaments, and booths are raised before the houses of both. The bridegroom, with a marriage coronet of wild date or sindi leaves and attended by music and friends, visits the temple of their gods in their own suburb, and goes to the bride's where the Brahman priest joins their hands, musicians play, women colour the fingers of the bride and bridegroom red with pounded mendi or henna leaves, and the owner of the house serves the guests with betel. Friends and relations are treated to a dinner of cakes and boiled mutton. In the evening the maternal uncles of the boy and girl lift them on their shoulders and dance with them, a performance which is known as the jhenda or war dance. At night, to please the family gods, the gondhal dance is performed. The ceremony lasts four days, castepeople are again feasted, and the pair go to the bridegroom's with music and friends. They burn the dead. After death the body is laid on a bier, shrouded in a new white sheet, and taken to the burning ground by four castemen with the son or the chief mourner walking in front holding an earthen fire-pot. The pile is made ready and the body is laid on it and burnt according to the directions of the Pardeshi Brahman priest who accompanies the funeral party and repeats texts or mantras. When the body is nearly consumed, the chief mourner walks three times round the pile with an earthen vessel or ghagar filled with water on his shoulder, at each round pierces a hole in its bottom and lets water flow out that the dead may drink. Rites are performed for thirteen days after a death. They end with a feast to the friends and relations of the dead on the thirteenth. The rich alone mark the death-day by a mind-rite or shraddh. They are bound together by a strong caste feeling and social disputes are settled at meetings of a council or panch under their headman or chaudhari. The office of chaudhari is hereditary. He is highly respected by the castepeople who present him with a turban on marriages and show him great respect at caste feasts. The council's decisions are obeyed on pain of loss of caste. The religious teacher is not consulted on points of social discipline. They have lately begun to send their boys to school. They are fairly off and with a little more thrift would be well-to-do.

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

KONKANIS are immigrants from Thana who have spread into the Dangs and up the western spurs of the Sahyadri hills. They seem to be newcomers, many within the last generation, and almost all within the last hundred years. They call themselves Konkan Kunbis, and area wretched looking race like Kolis in appearance and not above thorn in intelligence. Choosing sparsely peopled places with tracts of waste arable land, they often shift their wattle and daub huts, and occasionally go to the Konkan to renew their connection with their native place, nominally in search of uplands and grazing. They stand the feverish western climate better than Nasik Kunbis, and, as the Bhils and Kolis are very idle, they have almost the monopoly of hill cultivation. They are much given to wood ash, dalhi, tillage, and, where this is not allowed, they work as labourers. They have a great name for skill in sorcery. Except a few village headmen who hold hereditary grants they are badly off.

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Nashik District Gazetteer (1883))

KOMTIS, from the Karnatak, have been settled in the district from fifty to sixty years. They speak Telagu at home and Marathi abroad. Dirty and idle they are great toddy drinkers, and earn their living by selling beads, sacred threads, needles, small metal pots, and pieces of sandalwood and basil garlands; others by mending and selling old worn-out clothes, and some by begging. They ask Deccan Brahmans to officiate at their marriages. Their priest, Krishnacharya, lives in a monastery at Varsuvargal, near Haidarabad, in the Nizam's territories, and visits Nasik once in every five or six years. Their caste disputes are sottled at meetings of adult male members helped by their religious head or his assistant, munkari, whose duty it is to settle the disputes referred to him by the high priest

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Satara District Gazetteer (1884))

Komtis [As in Nasik (Bombay Gazetteer, XVI. 59) the word Komti is used in Satara of two distinct classes, a class of shopkeepers and a tribe of wandering beggars and charmsellers. The application of the same name to two distinct classes suggests that the same is a place or district name. It seems possible that Komti is a shortened form of Komomethi, properly Kammametti, from the district Kammammett in the Nizam's country, Kamathi like Komti is applied to more than one distinct class, and it seems possible that like Komti Kamathi comes from Kammammetti.] are returned as numbering 159 and as found in Satara, Karad, Javli, Khanapur, Patan, and Tasgaon. They are natives of Telangan or the Telugu country, but they cannot tell when they came to Satara. 

They have no history and no subdivisions. Their surnames are Utukhar, Keshavkhar, Polavar, Chintalvar, and Bachuvar. The names in common use among men are Poshatti, Shivaya, Rarnaya, Krishnaya, and Rajaya; and among women Ganga, Shivbai, Bhagubai, and Janabai. They are dark, middle-sized, and spare, and their home-speech is Telugu. They own houses one or two storeys high and keep them neat and clean. They are vegetarians and their staple food is millet, rice, and vegetables. They are temperate in eating, good cooks, and fond of sour and pungent dishes. They drink a liquid preparation of hemp flowers, but not liquor, and smoke tobacco, hemp, and opium. The men dress like Brahmans in a waistcloth, coat, turban, shouldercloth, and shoes, and the women in a robe and bodice. The women wear false hair and tie their hair in a knot at the back of the head. They wear glass bangles and their ornaments-are the same as those of Maratha Brahmans. They are a mild, honest, orderly, and hardworking people. Most of them are grocers, dealing in spices, salt, grain, butter, oil, molasses, and sugar. 

Their customs from birth to death are the same as those of the Sholapur Komtis. [Komti details are given in the Sholapur Statistical Account.] They are bound together by a strong caste feeling and settle social disputes at caste meetings. They send their boys to school for a short time and are a poor people.

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Satara District Gazetteer (1884))

Kanja'ris, or Weaving Brushmakers, are returned as numbering two but others seem to have been entered under some other head as they are found in Satara, Karad, Khanapur, Man, and Tasgaon. They have no tradition of their origin or of their arrival in the district, and have no connection with any other tribe. Their surnames are Bhayas, Ghoyar, Mulaya, and Sankat; and families bearing the same surname do not intermarry. Their names are either Hindu or Muhammadan, the men's Babaji, Bhau, Gulu, Haji, and Sultan; and the women's Chuniya, Ganga, Punji, Multani and Juli. They look like Mhars and Mangs, are dark and middle sized, and the men wear short or long beards and moustaches. They speak both Marathi and Hindustani and wander in gangs of twenty or twenty-five. Like Kolhatis they change camp every fifteen days and carry their goods on donkeys. They live in tents and except earthen pots have no furniture. Their staple food is millet bread and vegetables, but they eat fish and flesh, drink liquor, and smoke hemp. The men dress in short trousers, a waistcoat, a shouldercloth, a Maratha turban, and shoes. The women wear the Maratha robe and bodice, tie the hair in a knot behind the head, and do not deck their heads with flowers or use false hair. The men gain their living by begging, and making ropes and weavers' brushes, and the women are beggars and thieves but not prostitutes. They are notorious thieves and are always under the eye of the police. They consider themselves higher than Chambhars, Dheds, Mangs, Mhars, or Musalmans, and say they do not eat from their bauds. Their gods are Thakur and Nal Saheb, and they have no images in their houses. They do not ask Brahmans to officiate at their bouses, have no religions head, and undertake no pilgrimages. For a woman's first confinement they build a new hut, and the confined woman engages no midwife, herself cuts the child's navel-cord and buries it in the hut in a hole along with the after-birth. For five days the mother and child bathe in hot water and in the evening of the fifth they name the child and treat castemen to liquor worth 2s. (Re. 1). 

When a marriage is settled the boy's father gives the castemen 5s. (Rs. 2�) and the girl's father 3s. (Rs. 1�), and it is spent in treating the caste to liquor. They make marriage booths at both the boy's and the girl's houses and tie bunches of mango leaves to a bamboo post. In the evening they treat the castemen to a dinner of mutton and pulse cakes. On the morning of the marriage day, at their homes, the boy and girl are rubbed with turmeric, and in the evening the boy is seated on horseback and taken in procession to the girl's. Here the boy and girl aro made to stand side by side and an elderly casteman throws unhusked rice on their heads and they are husband and wife. The guests are given a dinner of rice and curds and the day's proceedings are over. On tho fifth day the boy is seated on the shoulders of the girl's father and the girl on those of the boy's father and they go round the booth five times. A wheat bread and molasses dinner is given, and the two families exchange clothes, the boy walks with his bride to her new home, and the marriage ceremony is over. Kanjaris allow widow marriage and practise polygamy but know nothing of polyandry. 

The married are burnt and the unmarried buried. After death hot water is poured over the body and it is laid on a bier, covered with a sheet and with redpowder. It is carried to the burning ground and is cither buried or burnt. They observe no mourning except feasting the caste on the third and seventh day on rice and pulse. They have a headman called Mukha who settles social disputes at caste meetings. They do not send their boys to school and are very poor.

Reference: Link to Maharashtra Gazetteers (Poona District Gazetteer Part-I (1885))

Kafshgars, or Shoe-makers, are found in small numbers only in the town of Poona. They are descended from strangers from Kabul who are said to have come to the Deccan during Musalman rule. Their names Kishwar Khan, Dost Muhammad Khan, and Dilawar Khan, point to foreign extraction, and, though intermarriage has made great changes, both men and women are still bigger in bone, fairer, and larger-eyed than most Poona Musalmans. The men shave the head, wear the beard full, and dress in a headscarf, a shirt, a waistcoat, and a pair of tight or loose trousers. The women wear either a petticoat, a headscarf, and a bodice, or the Hindu robe and bodice. They appear in public, and help the men in embroidering slippers. The only shoes which the Kafshgars prepare are the embroidered slippers of coloured broadcloth, which are worn by married Musalman women, and sometimes by young men. A pair of women's slippers cost 4s. to �1 (Its. 2 - 10), and a pair of men's slippers 6s. to 10s. (Rs. 3-6). They are hardworking, but fond of good living, and spend all they earn without a thought of the future. Most have left Poona and gone to Bombay, Haidarabad, and other places in search of work. They marry either among themselves, or take wives from any of the regular Musalman communities. They have a special class organization, leaving the settlement of social disputes to a headman who is generally the oldest and richest member of their community. The headman punishes misconduct by a fine which goes to meet the oil expenses of the mosque, They have no special Hindu customs, and are careful to hold the sacrifice or akika and the initiation or bismilla ceremonies. They are Sunnis of the Hanafi school, but few of them are religious or careful to say their prayers, They do not send their boys to school, and none have risen to any high post.