5. The criminal Kanjars.
In Berār two main divisions of the Kanjars may be recognised, the Kūnchbandhia or those who make weavers’ brooms and are comparatively honest, and the other or criminal Kanjars.[22] The criminal Kanjars may again be divided into the Mārwāri and Deccani groups. They were probably once the same, but the Deccanis, owing to their settlement in the south, have adopted some Marātha or Gujarāti fashions, and speak the Marāthi language; their women wear the angia or Marātha breast-cloth fastening behind, and have a gold ornament shaped like a flower in the nose;[23] while the Mārwāri Kanjars have no breast-cloth and may not wear gold ornaments at all. The Deccani Kanjars are fond of stealing donkeys, their habit being either to mix their own herds with those of the village and drive them all off together, or, if they catch the donkeys unattended, to secrete them in some water-course, tying their legs together, and if they remain undiscovered to remove them at nightfall. The animals are at once driven away for a long distance before any attempt is made to dispose of them. The Mārwāri Kanjars consider it derogatory to keep donkeys and therefore do not steal these animals. They are preeminently cattle-lifters and sheep-stealers, and their encampments may be recognised by the numbers of bullocks and cows about them. Their women wear the short Mārwāri petticoat reaching half-way between the knees and ankles. Their hair is plaited over the forehead and cowrie shells and brass ornaments like buttons are often attached in it. Bead necklaces are much worn by the women and bead and horse-hair necklets by the men. A peculiarity about the women is that they are confirmed snuff-takers and consume great quantities of the weed in this form. The women go into the towns and villages and give exhibitions of singing and dancing; and picking up any information they can acquire about the location of property, impart this to the men. Sometimes they take service, and a case was known in Jubbulpore of Kanjar women hiring themselves out as pankha-pullers, with the result that the houses in which they were employed were subsequently robbed.[24] It is said, however, that they do not regularly break into houses, but confine themselves to lurking theft. I have thought it desirable to record here the above particulars of the criminal Kanjars, taken from Major Gunthorpe’s account; for, though the caste is, as already stated, identical with the Sānsias, their customs in Berār differ considerably from those of the Sānsias of Central India, who are treated of in the article on that caste.