The criminal Bagris still usually travel about in the disguise of
Gosains and Bairagis, and are very difficult of detection except to
real religious mendicants. Their housebreaking implement or jemmy
is known as _Gyan_, but in speaking of it they always add _Das_,
so that it sounds like the name of a Bairagi. [71] They are usually
very much afraid of the _gyan_ being discovered on their persons,
and are careful to bury it in the ground at each halting-place,
while on the march it may be concealed in a pack-saddle. The means of
identifying them, Mr. Kennedy remarks, [72] is by their family _deo_
or god, which they carry about when wandering with their families. It
consists of a brass or copper box containing grains of wheat and the
seeds of a creeper, both soaked in _ghi_ (melted butter). The box with
a peacock's feather and a bell is wrapped in two white and then in
two red cloths, one of the white cloths having the print of a man's
hand dipped in goat's blood upon it. The grains of wheat are used
for taking the omens, a few being thrown up at sun-down and counted
afterwards to see whether they are odd or even. When even, two grains
are placed on the right hand of the omen-taker, and if this occurs
three times running the auspices are considered to be favourable. [73]
Mr. Gayer [74] notes that the Badhaks have usually from one to three
brands from a hot iron on the inside of their left wrist. Those of
them who are hunters brand the muscles of the left wrist in order to
steady the hand when firing their matchlocks. The customs of wearing
a peculiar necklace of small wooden beads and a kind of gold pin
fixed to the front teeth, which Mr. Crooke [75] records as having
been prevalent some years ago, have apparently been since abandoned,
as they are not mentioned in more recent accounts. The Dehliwal and
Malpura Baorias have, Mr. Kennedy states, [76] an interesting system of
signs, which they mark on the walls of buildings at important corners,
bridges and cross-roads and on the ground by the roadside with a stick,
if no building is handy. The commonest is a loop, the straight line
indicating the direction a gang or individual has taken:
________________________
/
/ /---\
( ( /// )
\ \---/
\________
The addition of a number of vertical strokes inside the loop signifies
the number of males in a gang. If these strokes are enclosed by a
circle it means that the gang is encamped in the vicinity; while
a square inside a circle and line as below means that property has
been secured by friends who have left in the direction pointed by the
line. It is said that Baorias will follow one another up for fifty
or even a hundred miles by means of these hieroglyphics. The signs
are bold marks, sometimes even a foot or more in length, and are
made where they will at once catch the eye. When the Marwari Baorias
desire to indicate to others of their caste, who may follow in their
footsteps, the route taken, a member of the gang, usually a woman,
trails a stick in the dust as she walks along, leaving a spiral track
on the ground. Another method of indicating the route taken is to
place leaves under stones at intervals along the road. [77] The form
of crime most in favour among the ordinary Baoris is housebreaking
by night. Their common practice is to make a hole in the wall beside
the door through which the hand passes to raise the latch; and only
occasionally they dig a hole in the base of the wall to admit of the
passage of a man, while another favoured alternative is to break in
through a barred window, the bars being quickly and forcibly bent and
drawn out. [78] One class of Marwari Bagris are also expert coiners.
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