5. Occupation and social status.
The Gāndas are generally employed either in weaving coarse cloth or as village musicians. They sing and dance to the accompaniment of their instruments, the dancers generally being two young boys dressed as women. They have long hair and put on skirts and half-sleeved jackets, with hollow anklets round their feet filled with stones to make them tinkle. On their right shoulders are attached some peacocks’ feathers, and coloured cloths hang from their back and arms and wave about when they dance. Among their musical instruments is the sing-bāja, a single drum made of iron with ox-hide leather stretched over it; two horns project from the sides for purposes of decoration and give the instrument its name, and it is beaten with thick leather thongs. The dafla is a wooden drum open on one side and covered with a goat-skin on the other, beaten with a cane and a bamboo stick. The timki is a single hemispherical drum of earthenware; and the sahnai is a sort of bamboo flute. The Gāndas of Sambalpur have strong criminal tendencies which have recently called for special measures of repression. Nevertheless they are usually employed as village watchmen in accordance with long-standing custom. They are considered as impure and, though not compelled actually to live apart from the village, have usually a separate quarter and are not permitted to draw water from the village well or to enter Hindu temples. Their touch defiles, and a Hindu will not give anything into the hands of one of the caste while holding it himself, but will throw it down in front of the Gānda, and will take anything from him in the same manner. They will admit outsiders of higher rank into the caste, taking from them one or two feasts. And it is reported that in Raipur a Brāhman recently entered the caste for love of a Gānda girl.
[1] Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Pān.
[2] The human sacrifices of the Khonds were suppressed about 1860. See the article on that tribe.