9. Occupation and social customs
The Parjas are cultivators, and grow rice and other crops in the ordinary manner. Many of them are village headmen, and to these the term Dhurwa is more particularly applied. The tribe will eat fowls, pig, monkeys, the large lizard, field-rats, and bison and wild buffalo, but they do not eat carnivorous animals, crocodiles, snakes or jackals. Some of them eat beef while others have abjured it, and they will not accept the leavings of others. They are not considered to be an impure caste. If any man or woman belonging to a higher caste has a liaison with a Parja, and is on that account expelled from their own caste, he or she can be admitted as a Parja. In their other customs and dress and ornaments the tribe resemble the Gonds of Bastar. Women are tattooed on the chest and arms with patterns of dots. The young men sometimes wear their hair long, and tie it in a bunch behind, secured by a strip of cloth.
[1] This article is based on papers by Mr. Panda Baijnāth and other officers of the Bastar State.
[2] By Dr. Cornish.
[3] Linguistic Survey; vol. ix, p. 554; vol. ii. part ii. pp. 434 ff.
[4] In the article on Gond it is suggested that the Gonds and Khonds were originally one tribe, and the fact that the Parjas have affinities with both of them appears to support this view.
[5] Eugenia jambolana.
[6] Hareli, lit. ‘the season of greenness.’
[7] Nawākhāni, lit. ‘the new eating.’
[8] Folklore as a Historical Science (G.L. Gomme), pp. 191, 192.