As already stated, the women are professional prostitutes, but these
do not marry, and on arrival at maturity they choose the life which
they prefer. Mr. Crooke states, [261] however, that regular marriages
seldom occur among them, because nearly all the girls are reserved
for prostitution, and the men keep concubines drawn from any fairly
respectable caste. So far is this the rule that in some localities if
a man marries a girl of the tribe he is put out of caste or obliged
to pay a fine to the tribal council. This last rule does not seem
to obtain in the Central Provinces, but marriages are uncommon. In
a colony of Berias in Jubbulpore [262] numbering sixty families it
was stated that only eight weddings could be remembered as having
occurred in the last fifty years. The boys therefore have to obtain
wives as best they can; sometimes orphan girls from other castes are
taken into the community, or any outsider is picked up. For a bride
from the caste itself a sum of Rs. 100 is usually demanded, and the
same has to be paid by a Beria man who takes a wife from the Nat or
Kanjar castes, as is sometimes done. When a match is proposed they
ask the expectant bridegroom how many thefts he has committed without
detection; and if his performances have been inadequate they refuse
to give him the girl on the ground that he will be unable to support
a wife. At the betrothal the boy's parents go to the girl's house,
taking with them a potful of liquor round which a silver ring is
placed and a pig. The ring is given to the girl and the head of
the pig to her father, while the liquor and the body of the pig
provide a feast for the caste. They consult Brahmans at their birth
and marriage ceremonies. Their principal deities appear to be their
ancestors, whom they worship on the same day of the month and year
as that on which their death took place. They make an offering of a
pig to the goddess Dadaju or Devi before starting on their annual
predatory excursions. Some rice is thrown into the animal's ear
before it is killed, and the direction in which it turns its head is
selected as the one divinely indicated for their route. Prostitution
is naturally not regarded as any disgrace, and the women who have
selected this profession mix on perfectly equal terms with those
who are married. They occupy, in fact, a more independent position,
as they dispose absolutely of their own earnings and property, and on
their death it devolves on their daughters or other female relatives,
males having no claim to it, in some localities at least. Among the
children of married couples daughters inherit equally with sons. A
prostitute is regarded as the head of the family so far as her children
are concerned. Outsiders are freely admitted into the caste on giving
a feast to the community. In Saugor the women of the caste, known
as Berni, are the village dancing-girls, and are employed to give
performances in the cold weather, especially at the Holi festival,
where they dance the whole night through, fortified by continuous
potations of liquor. This dance is called _rai_, and is accompanied
by most obscene songs and gestures.