12. Occupation and social rules.
The tribe consider military service to be their traditional occupation, but the bulk of them are now cultivators and labourers. Many of them are farmers of villages in the zamīndāris. Rautias weave ropes and make sleeping-cots, but the other Kawars consider such work to be degrading. They have the ordinary Hindu rules of inheritance, but a son claiming partition in his father’s lifetime is entitled to two bullocks and nothing more. When the property is divided on the death of the father, the eldest son receives an allowance known as jithai over and above his share, this being a common custom in the Chhattīsgarh country where the Kawars reside. The tribe do not admit outsiders with the exception of Kaurai Rāwat girls married to Kawars. They have a tribal panchāyat or committee, the head of which is known as Pardhān. Its proceedings are generally very deliberate, and this has led to the saying: “The Ganda’s panchāyat always ends in a quarrel; the Gond’s panchāyat cares only for the feast; and the Kawar’s panchāyat takes a year to make up its mind.” But when the Kawars have decided, they act with vigour. They require numerous goats as fines for the caste feast, and these, with fried urad, form the regular provision. Liquor, however, is only sparingly consumed. Temporary exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, which include going to jail, getting the ears split, or getting maggots in a wound. The last is the most serious offence, and when the culprit is readmitted to social intercourse the Dhobi (washerman) is employed to eat with him first from five different plates, thus taking upon himself any risk of contagion from the impurity which may still remain. The Kawar eats flesh, fowls and pork, but abjures beef, crocodiles, monkeys and reptiles. From birds he selects the parrot, dove, pigeon, quail and partridge as fit for food. He will not eat meat sold in market because he considers it halāli or killed in the Muhammadan fashion, and therefore impure. He also refuses a particular species of fish called rechha, which is black and fleshy and has been nicknamed ‘The Telī’s bullock.’ The higher subtribes have now given up eating pork and the Tanwars abstain from fowls also. The Kawars will take food only from a Gond or a Kaurai Rāwat, and Gonds will also take food from them. In appearance and manners they greatly resemble the Gonds, from whom they are hardly distinguished by the Hindus. Dalton[4] described them as “A dark, coarse-featured, broad-nosed, wide-mouthed and thick-lipped race, decidedly ugly, but taller and better set up than most of the other tribes. I have also found them a clean, well-to-do, industrious people, living in comfortable, carefully-constructed and healthily-kept houses and well dressed.”
Of their method of dancing Ball[5] writes as follows: “In the evening some of the villagers—Kaurs they were I believe—entertained us with a dance, which was very different from anything seen among the Santāls or Kols. A number of men performed a kind of ladies’ chain, striking together as they passed one another’s pronged sticks which they carried in their hands. By foot, hand and voice the time given by a tom-tom is most admirably kept.”
[1] This article is based almost entirely on a monograph contributed by Mr. Hīra Lāl.
[2] Ethnology, p. 158.
[3] Fruit of the egg-plant.
[4] Ethnology, pp. 136, 137.
[5] Jungle Life in India, pp. 315, 316.