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

Uchla's, or Pickpockets literally Lifters, are returned as numbering 148 and as found in Karad, Koregaon, Satara, and Valva. They have no divisions and their home speech is Telugu. They live either in ordinary middle class houses or in straw huts with thatched roofs. Except a few metal and earthen vessels their houses contain little furniture. Most of them keep cattle. They eat fish and flesh and drink liquor. They are petty thieves and pickpockets and are not helped in their calling by their wives. They visit local fairs to carry on their trade. Of late a few have taken to tillage and day-labour. They wipe out the sin of theft by occasional grants of bread to the poor. Their family deities are Ambabai of Tuljapur in the Nizam's country, Bahiroba of Karad in Satara, Khandoba of Jejuri, and Yallamma in the Karnatak. They have a priest of their own caste whom they ask to conduct their marriage and other ceremonies. They have a headman called naik who settles their social disputes. A few of them send their boys to school till they are twelve, and they are generally a steady class. [Details of Uchla customs are given in the Poona Statistical Account.]

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

Vanja'ris, or Grain-dealers, are returned as numbering 2606 and as found all over the district. They have no story of their origin and no memory of former settlements or of the reason or the date of their settling in Poona. They belong to two classes, Marathi and Kongadi Vanjaris, who dine together but do not intermarry. The surnames of the Maratha Vanjaris are Andhle, Darode, Ghule, Palane, Sabale, and Thorave. The names in common use among men are Rambhau, Sakharam, Satvaji, and Tukaram; and among women Bhagirathi, Bhima, Gangabai, Rahi, and Raji. As a class they are tall, strong, well-made, and dark. The men shave the head except the top-knot and the face except the moustache and whiskers. Their head hair is long and black and the face hair thick and short. They speak Marathi both at home and abroad, and live in houses with walls of brick and stones and tiled roofs. Their furniture includes cots, cradles, boxes, carpets, blankets, and metal vessels. They own cattle and keep hares and parrots as pets. They are moderate eaters and their staple food includes pulse, rice, vegetables, and Indian millet bread. A man spends on his food 2�d. to 3d. (1�-2 as.) a day. They are careful to bathe before they take their morning meal. Caste feasts are given in honour of marriage and other ceremonies. When they can afford it they eat the flesh of goats, fish, poultry, deer, and hare. They drink liquor, smoke hemp-flower or ganja, and eat opium. The men wear a waistcloth, a shouldercloth, a shirt or bandi, a turban, and Deccan shoes. The women plait their hair into braids and wear a bodice with a back and short sleeves and the full Maratha robe whose skirt is drawn back between the feet. Neither men nor women have any store of fine clothes for holiday wear, but give their usual clothes a special washing. As a class they are dirty, hardworking, frugal, irritable, and hospitable. Their chief hereditary calling is carrying rice, pulse, and other grain on pack-bullocks. Since the opening of cart roads and railways the pack-bullock trade has much declined and many have had to seek other employment. Some are husbandmen and some constables and messengers, some deal in fodder, and some deal in wood. Of those who have taken to husbandry some show much skill both in field-work and in gardening, and others deal in milk and clarified butter. Their women help in hoeing and cutting grass and their children in watching and bird-scaring. As a class the Vanjari landholders are not prosperous. They can borrow on their personal credit �20 to �50 (Es.200-500) at yearly rates varying from twelve to thirty-six per cent. A Vanjari eats from no one but a Brahman or a Maratha. They rank themselves with Marathas but Marathas look down on them and object to dine with them.

Vanjaris are religious. Some worship Shiv and others Vishnu, but their chief objects of worship are their family deities Bahiroba, Bhavani, and Khandoba. Their priest is a Deshasth Brahman, whom they call to their houses during their marriage death and other ceremonies. They make pilgrimages to Alandi, Jejuri, Pandharpur, Singanapur, Tuljapur, and other sacred places. They keep the fasts and feasts observed by other Brahmanic Hindus, and fast on ekadashis or lunar elevenths. They have no special guide but most of them become the disciples of some Gosavi. Their women and children occasionally suffer from spirit possession. When they think that any sickness has been caused by spirits an exorcist or deverishi is called in who repeats some verses and waves a lemon and a fowl round the possessed person's head and drives out the spirit. When a woman is in labour a midwife is called. She comes and prepares a place for bathing the woman. She cuts the child's navei cord and buries it under the spot where the woman was bathed and the mother is laid on a cot. On the fifth day a cocoanut and lemon are laid on a grindstone and worshipped by men who sit up the whole night. The ceremonial impurity lasts for ten days. On the twelfth Satvai is worshipped and the child is named by elderly persons in the house. Between the time when a boy is twelve months and three years old, the hair-cutting or javal takes place. If the child is the subject of a vow a goat is sacrificed in the name of some god. The child is seated in its maternal uncle's lap in the presence of a company of friends and relations. After the hair has been clipped the head of the child is shaved except a small tuft or shendi on the top of the head. New clothes are given to the child and friends and relations are feasted.

The offer of marriage comes from the boy's side. The boy's father goes with some friends to the girl's house and asks her father whether he will give his daughter in marriage to his son. If the father agrees a formal offer is made. Then follow as among other Marathas the turmeric-rubbing, the installation of the wedding-guardian or devak, and the making of wedding porches. On the marriage day the bridegroom is dressed in new clothes, a marriage ornament called bashing is tied to his brow and he is taken on horse-back with friends and music to the temple of Maruti in the girl's village. The bridegroom is seated in the temple and his brother mounts the horse and goes to the bride's. Her father gives him a turban and scarf and these he takes to the temple and gives to the bridegroom to wear. Then the bridegroom is seated on the horse and led to the bride's. He is taken into the wedding porch and made to stand on a carpet or sacking. The bride is led out and is made to stand facing the bridegroom. A piece of cloth is held between them, the Brahman priest hands to the guests rice mixed with turmeric powder, and gives the bride and bridegroom a roll of betel leaves to hold. He then recites the wedding verses ending with Siva lagna, savadhana, May the wedding be lucky, Beware. He throws lucky rice five times over the couple, and the guests throw the rice which they have in their hands. Then the couple are seated and the bridegroom ties the lucky thread round the bride's neck. The washerman brings a piece of fresh-washed white cloth. This is cut in two and in each part a turmeric, betelnut, and cloves are rolled and one is fastened round the right arm of the bridegroom and the other round the right arm of the bride. When the couple are seated on the altar the priest lights a sacred fire. When the fire is kindled and verses have been read the couple each in turn throw clarified butter and rice into the fire. Then the guests wave copper coins round the bride and bridegroom and throw them away. The skirts of the boy's and girl's robes are knotted together and they go and bow to the family gods. When the worship of the house gods is over they fall at the feet of the bride's mother, who unties their clothes. The day ends with a feast. On the day after the wedding a second caste feast is given. On the third day the bridegroom and the bride are bathed and made to dine from the same dish in the presence of friends and relations. The guests as on the wedding day wave copper coins round the bridegroom and the bride and throw them away. The coppers are given to the priest or the pipers, or they are changed into silver and made into finger rings for the bride and bridegroom. Then with music the bride and bridegroom start in procession for the bridegroom's house, where a feast of cakes and flesh is given and the wedding guardian or devak is bowed out. When a girl comes of age she sits by herself for four days and on the fifth she is bathed. On the sixteenth the girl's father with music fetches her husband and asks him to put fruits and nuts into the girl's lap and presents the girl with a robe and bodice and her husband with a turban. The day ends with a feast. The Vanjaris have no pregnancy ceremony. 

When a Vanjari dies his friends and relations or caste-people meet and prepare a bier. A fire is kindled and some water is heated in a new earthen pot. The body is taken out of the house, bathed in hot water and dressed in a loincloth, laid on the bier, and covered with a new white cloth. Then the chief mourner starts carrying the fire-pot and the bearers follow. On the way to the burning ground they rest the bier, lay on the ground a copper coin and some rice, change places, and carry on the body to the burning ground. At the burning ground they lay down the bier and unfasten the body. The chief mourner has his face, including the moustache, shaved, washes in cold water, and with the help of others begins to heap up the funeral pile. When the pile is ready the body is laid on it and the chief mourner squeezes some water into the dead mouth and kindles the pyre. When the body is nearly consumed the son walks thrice round the pyre with the dripping earthen water jar, dashes it on the ground, beats his mouth, and cries aloud. All go to the river to bathe and return to the house of mourning in wet clothes. At the house of mourning they are given some nim leaves to eat. They then look at the lamp which has been set over the place where the deceased died and go to their homes. On the third day the chief mourner, accompanied by a priest and a few relatives, takes a winnowing basket and two or three small earthen pots, with milk, curds, clarified butter, and cow's urine, and five millet cakes, and goes to the burning ground. At the burning ground the cow's urine, milk, and curds are poured over the ashes, which are gathered in a blanket and thrown into the river. Milk, curds, and cow's urine are again poured over the place where the ashes were, and two earthen jars are set where the head lay and one where the feet lay when the dead was burned. The jars are filled with water and covered with the five millet cakes, and worshipped with flowers and sandal powder. When this is over the winnowing basket is thrown away and the people return home. Ceremonial impurity lasts ten days. On the tenth, ten balls of wheat flour are prepared and worshipped and one is offered to the crows and the rest are thrown into the river. After a crow has touched the ball the mourners bathe and go home. On the eleventh, they wash their clothes and cowdung the house where the death took place. On the twelfth and thirteenth caste feasts are given when relations present the chief mourner with a mourning suit or dukhavata. A shraddha or mind-feast is performed every year in September. There is no single community of Vanjaris. Each group holds meetings and settles social disputes without any headman. Offences against caste rules are punished by fines varying from 3d. to 2s. 6d. (Re. �-1�). If a man refuses to pay the fine, he is put out of caste and not allowed back till he has given a caste feast. Both boys and girls are sent to school and kept there till they are about twelve. Some of them take to new callings and their prospects on the whole are good.

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))

Vaidus, or Physicians, are returned as numbering 523 and as found in Haveli, Khed, and Sirur. They are divided into Jholivales or Bag-man, Chataivales or Mat-men, and Dadhivales or Beard-men who neither eat together nor intermarry. The surnames of the Jholivales or Bag-men, to whom the following particulars belong, are Akpra, Ambile, Chitkal, Kodganti, Manpati, Metkal, Parkanti, and Shingade, and persons bearing the same surname do not intermarry. They are dark, stout, and strongly made. The men wear the top-knot, moustache, whiskers, and sometimes the beard. Their home speech is Telugu, but out of doors they speak incorrect Marathi and Hindustani. They are a wandering people and camp outside of towns in cloth tents or pals which they carry with them on bullocks or donkeys. They keep dogs and domestic fowls. They eat fish and flesh except beef and pork, and drink liquor. Their staple food is millet, vegetables, and occasionally wheat and rice and clarified butter. They are frugal in their use of clarified butter. However well-to-do a family is clarified butter is always served by dipping cotton in it and squeezing the cotton over the dining plate. The men wear the loincloth, an ochre-coloured cloak, waistcloth, or pair of short breeches, a headscarf or a red or white turban, and a necklace of coloured glass, stone, or coral beads, gold or brass earrings, and silver or brass finger rings. Their women wear a loose bodice with short sleeves and a back and the full Maratha robe, the skirt of which they pass back between the feet and tuck into the waist behind. They rub powder on their brows, wear false hair, and sometimes deck their heads with flowers. They are dealers in drugs and medicines, and, under the pretence of working cures deceive ignorant and simpleminded people, especially women. Both men and women generally visit the chief towns in the Poona district once a year, and disappear after disposing of their drugs and medicines either retail to villagers or wholesale to shopkeepers. They pretend to heal any disease from a simple cough or headache to hopeless dropsy or consumption. Besides gathering and hawking healing herbs, barks, and roots, they use many mineral medicines and poisons, and they and their women beg for bread. The women, in addition, as they walk plait date-mats, three feet by six, and sell them at about 1�d. (1 a.). On halting at a village or town the men and women walk through the streets and lanes with one or two ochre-coloured cloth bags hung across their shoulders, containing, besides drugs, the skins of lizards, porcupine quills, tigers' claws, bears' hair and teeth, foxes' heads, and deadly poisons. The cloth sacks in which these articles are carried are tied either to both ends or to one end of a stick which is carried over the shoulder. As they move along, the Vaidus shout, Nadipariksha Vaid the Pulse-feeling Doctor, Mandur-Vaid, the Medicine-selling Doctor, Garmi-vaid the Heat-curing Doctor, Pitta Vaid the Bile-curing Doctor, and so on, shouting the names of men's and women's diseases. They also bleed, both by cupping and by applying leeches. They are Hindus and worship the usual Brahmanic and local gods and goddesses. Their family gods are Venkoba and Mariamma and Yallamma. On their big day, Dasara in October, they kill a sheep and drink liquor to their heart's content. They believe in sorcery, witchcraft, soothsaying omens, and lucky and unlucky days, and consult oracles. A woman is unclean ten days after the birth of a child. On the fifth day she worships five pebbles near a well or stream and feasts five married women with gram cakes. They marry their girls after they come of age and their boys after they are sixteen. On the marriage day the boy goes with his relations and friends to the girl's and is seated on a mat. The girl is brought in and seated on the boy's left. After the elders have made the boy promise to protect the girl and never to forsake her, five married women, three from the boy's side and two from the girl's, approach the boy and girl and mark their brows with cowdung ashes or bhasm, and the day ends with a feast. Next, morning the boy and girl are seated on a mat and the five married women tie a marriage string or garsoli round the girl's neck. The skirts of their garments are knotted together and they are taken to the boy's house, where the knot is untied and the marriage ceremony is over. 

They either bury or burn their dead. If the deceased was a married man he is buried sitting, if unmarried he is laid on his back. They mourn the dead ten days. On the eleventh a Jangam blows a conch-shell and rings a bell in the deceased's house, and after receiving 1� d. (1 a.) retires. A feast of mutton ends the death ceremony. They allow widow-marriage and polygamy, but not polyandry. A boy's marriage costs them �1 to �2 (Rs. 10-20), a girl's marriage 10s.to 12s. (Rs.5-6), and a death about 10s. (Rs.5). They have a headman or patil who settles social disputes at meetings of the castemen. If a person beats another with a shoe he is fined 1s. to 1s. 3d. (8-10 as.); a daughter abusing her mother-in-law is fined 4�d. (3 as.) and in addition has to wash her mother-in-law's hands and feet, put a pinch of dust on her own head, and beg forgiveness; if she beats her mother-in-law she is lined 1s. 6d. (12 as.); and if she steals she is branded with a hot copper coin. If a man eats beef he is put out of caste and not allowed to come back. If a woman commits adultery with a Brahman or other high-caste Hindu she is fined. 10s. (Rs. 5), her husband is fined 6s. (Rs.3), and her parents 8s. (Rs. 4), and she is let back into caste. If she has intercourse with a Mhar or Mang or any other low-caste man she is put out of caste and never let back. They are not allowed to work as labourers. Any one found working for hire is put out of caste and not allowed back until he feasts the whole caste. The Jholivales do not send their boys to school. The establishment of Government and other charitable dispensaries, the increase in the number of medical practitioners, and the growing trust in English drugs, have ruined the Vaidus. They are now little better than beggars.

Da'dhivale Vaidus or Bearded Doctors are divided into Dhangars, Jhingabhois, Kolis, Khulekars, Ravals, and Vagmudis. The names in Common use among men are Rama, Malaka, Sayana, Govinda, Ismal, and Mutya; and among women Mukti, Yalli, Malli, Mukti, Rakhma, Thaki, Chimi, Radha, Ramu, and Lingi. They are black, ugly, and extremely wild-looking. Excepting beef they eat anything, and excepting a rag round their middle the men are naked, and the women wear no clothes except a cloth rolled round the waist and one end drawn across the breast. When they hawk their herbs and roots and barks they call Vaila okhad, A cure for wind; Sardila okhad, A cure for cold; Narula okhad, A cure for guineaworm, and so on cures for all diseases which flesh inherits or acquires. Their wives grind quartz into the powder called rangoli, of which spirits stand in awe, and sell it at 1�d. to 2�d. (1-1� as.) a pound. The marriage of a boy or girl costs them about 10s. (Rs. 5) and a death 6s. to 8s. (Rs. 3-4). They seem to have no idea of a god, do not keep fasts or feasts, and marry their women at any age. They make the couple stand face to face on a piece of cloth, a necklace is tied to the girl's neck, red rice is thrown on their heads by a Brahman, and the marriage is over. 

They bury their dead, mourn five days, and offer cooked food to the deceased on the house-tops, and feast caste-people with cakes and rice. They have a caste council who settle social disputes. They do not send their boys to school and are miserably 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 (Kolhapur District Gazetteer(1886))

Valha'rs are returned as numbering 270 and as found only in some villages of the State. In name, house, food, dress, religion, and customs they do not differ from Kunbis. They play on flutes and drums and beg. Some are husbandmen, some make horse whips, and some are day-labourers. They do not send their children to school and are a steady class.

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

Zarekaris, or Dust-washers, are returned as numbering twenty and as found only in Poona and Haveli. They believe that they came from Aurangabad and the Nizam's country during the Peshwa's supremacy. They have no divisions and their surnames are Povar, Thombre, and Toke, and families bearing the same surname do not. intermarry. The names in common use among men are Baloba, Bhanu, Kashinath, and Rangoba; and among women Bhavani, Ganga, Guna, Mana, and Rangu. They look like Marathas and speak Marathi. The men wear the top-knot, moustache, and whiskers, but not the beard. They live in houses of the poorer sort, one storey high, with tiled roofs. 

Their household furniture includes boxes, cots, cradles, blankets, carpets, and quilts, and earthen and metal vessels. Their staple food is millet bread, split pulse, vegetables, and pounded chillies. They eat fish and flesh and drink liquor. Their holiday dishes are mutton and sugar-cakes. Both men and women dress like Brahmans, but their women do not deck their heads with flowers or use false hair. They are a hardworking frugal people. They buy the ashes and sweepings of a, goldsmith's shop for �d. to 2s. (Re.⅓2-1) a heap, wash them, and search for gold and silver dust. They also search the ashes at the burning ground in Poona where they find small fragments of gold or silver which have been burnt with the dead, and examine market-places being rewarded by a chance bead or a lost copper or silver coin. They worship the usual Brahmanic gods and goddesses. 

Their family god is Khandoba and their priests are Deshasth Brahmans. They keep the regular Hindu fasts and feasts, and make pilgrimages to Chatarshringi, Jejuri and Pandharpur. They practise child-marriage widow-marriage and polygamy. They have no headman and settle social disputes at meetings of the castemen. They do not send their boys to school and are a poor people.