8. Social customs.
The Gowāris eat pork, fowls, rats, lizards and peacocks, and abstain only from beef and the flesh of monkeys, crocodiles and jackals. They will take food from a Māna, Marār or Kohli, and water from a Gond. Kunbis will take water from them, and Gonds, Dhīmars and Dhobis will accept cooked food. All Gowāri men are tattooed with a straight vertical line on the forehead, and many of them have the figures of a peacock, deer or horse on the right shoulder or on both shoulders. A man without the mark on the forehead will scarcely be admitted to be a true Gowāri, and would have to prove his birth before he was allowed to join a caste feast. Women are tattooed with a pattern of straight and crooked lines on the right arm below the elbow, which they call Sīta’s arm. They have a vertical line standing on a horizontal one on the forehead, and dots on the temples.
[1] This article is based on notes by Mr. Percival, Assistant Conservator of Forests, and Rai Bahādur Hīra Lal.
[2] For further details see article on Gond Gowāri.
[3] See article on Kunbi.