The Banjaras eat all kinds of meat, including fowls and pork, and drink
liquor. But the Mathurias abstain from both flesh and liquor. Major
Gunthorpe states that the Banjaras are accustomed to drink before
setting out for a dacoity or robbery and, as they smoke after drinking,
the remains of leaf-pipes lying about the scene of action may indicate
their handiwork. They rank below the cultivating castes, and Brahmans
will not take water to drink from them. When engaged in the carrying
trade, they usually lived in _kuris_ or hamlets attached to such
regular villages as had considerable tracts of waste land belonging
to them. When the _tanda_ or caravan started on its long carrying
trips, the young men and some of the women went with it with the
working bullocks, while the old men and the remainder of the women
and children remained to tend the breeding cattle in the hamlet. In
Nimar they generally rented a little land in the village to give
them a footing, and paid also a carrying fee on the number of cattle
present. Their spare time was constantly occupied in the manufacture
of hempen twine and sacking, which was much superior to that obtainable
in towns. Even in Captain Forsyth's [226] time (1866) the construction
of railways and roads had seriously interfered with the Banjaras'
calling, and they had perforce taken to agriculture. Many of them
have settled in the new ryotwari villages in Nimar as Government
tenants. They still grow _tilli_ [227] in preference to other crops,
because this oilseed can be raised without much labour or skill,
and during their former nomadic life they were accustomed to sow it
on any poor strip of land which they might rent for a season. Some
of them also are accustomed to leave a part of their holding untilled
in memory of their former and more prosperous life. In many villages
they have not yet built proper houses, but continue to live in mud
huts thatched with grass. They consider it unlucky to inhabit a house
with a cement or tiled roof; this being no doubt a superstition arising
from their camp life. Their houses must also be built so that the main
beams do not cross, that is, the main beam of a house must never be
in such a position that if projected it would cut another main beam;
but the beams may be parallel. The same rule probably governed the
arrangement of tents in their camps. In Nimar they prefer to live at
some distance from water, probably that is of a tank or river; and this
seems to be a survival of a usage mentioned by the Abbé Dubois: [228]
"Among other curious customs of this odious caste is one that obliges
them to drink no water which is not drawn from springs or wells. The
water from rivers and tanks being thus forbidden, they are obliged
in case of necessity to dig a little hole by the side of a tank or
river and take the water filtering through, which, by this means, is
supposed to become spring water." It is possible that this rule may
have had its origin in a sanitary precaution. Colonel Sleeman notes
[229] that the Banjaras on their carrying trips preferred by-paths
through jungles to the high roads along cultivated plains, as grass,
wood and water were more abundant along such paths; and when they could
not avoid the high roads, they commonly encamped as far as they could
from villages and towns, and upon the banks of rivers and streams,
with the same object of obtaining a sufficient supply of grass,
wood and water. Now it is well known that the decaying vegetation in
these hill streams renders the water noxious and highly productive of
malaria. And it seems possible that the perception of this fact led
the Banjaras to dig shallow wells by the sides of the streams for
their drinking-water, so that the supply thus obtained might be in
some degree filtered by percolation through the intervening soil and
freed from its vegetable germs. And the custom may have grown into
a taboo, its underlying reason being unknown to the bulk of them,
and be still practised, though no longer necessary when they do not
travel. If this explanation be correct it would be an interesting
conclusion that the Banjaras anticipated so far as they were able the
sanitary precaution by which our soldiers are supplied with portable
filters when on the march.