2. Beldārs of the northern Districts.
The Beldārs of Saugor say that their ancestors were engaged in refining salt from earth. A divine saint named Nona Rīshi (non, salt) came down on earth, and while cooking his food mixed some saline soil with it. The bread tasted much better in consequence, and he made the earth into a ball or goli and taught his followers to extract the salt from it, whence their descendants are known as Goli Beldārs. The customs of these Beldārs are of the ordinary low-caste type. The wedding procession is accompanied by drums, fireworks and, if means permit, a nautch-girl. If a man puts away his wife without adequate cause the caste panchāyat may compel him to support her so long as she remains of good conduct. The party seeking a divorce, whether husband or wife, has to pay Rs. 7 to the caste committee and the other partner Rs. 3, irrespective of where the blame rests, and each remains out of caste until he or she pays.
These Beldārs will not take food from any caste but their own, and will not take water from a Brāhman, though they will accept it from Kurmis, Gūjars and similar castes. Sir H. Risley notes that their women always remove earth in baskets on the head. “The Beldārs regard this mode of carrying earth as distinctive of themselves, and will on no account transport it in baskets slung from the shoulders. They work very hard when paid by the piece, and are notorious for their skill in manipulating the pillars (sākhi, witness) left to mark work done, so as to exaggerate the measurement. On one occasion while working for me on a large lake at Govindpur, in the north of the Mānbhum District, a number of Beldārs transplanted an entire pillar during the night and claimed payment for several thousand feet of imaginary earthwork. The fraud was most skilfully carried out, and was only detected by accident.”[2] The Beldārs are often dishonest in their dealings, and will take large advances for a tank or embankment, and then abscond with the money without doing the work. During the open season parties of the caste travel about in camp looking for work, their furniture being loaded on donkeys. They carry grain in earthen pots encased in bags of netting, neatly and closely woven, and grind their wheat daily in a small mill set on a goat-skin. Butter is made in one of their pots with a churning-stick, consisting of a cogged wheel fixed on to the end of a wooden rod.