The Bhainas are a comparatively civilised tribe and have largely
adopted Hindu usages. They employ Brahmans to fix auspicious days
for their ceremonies, though not to officiate at them. They live
principally in the open country and are engaged in agriculture, though
very few of them hold land and the bulk are farm-labourers. They now
disclaim any connection with the primitive Baigas, who still prefer
the forests. But their caste mark, a symbol which may be affixed to
documents in place of a signature or used for a brand on cattle, is
a bow, and this shows that they retain the recollection of hunting as
their traditional occupation. Like the Baigas, the tribe have forgotten
their native dialect and now speak bad Hindi. They will eat pork and
rats, and almost anything else they can get, eschewing only beef. But
in their intercourse with other castes they are absurdly strict, and
will take boiled rice only from a Kawar, or from a Brahman if it is
cooked in a brass and not in an earthen vessel, and this only from
a male and not from a female Brahman; while they will accept baked
_chapatis_ and other food from a Gond and a Rawat. But in Sambalpur
they will take this from a Savar and not from a Gond. They rank below
the Gonds, Kawars and Savars or Saonrs. Women are tattooed with a
representation of their sept totem; and on the knees and ankles they
have some figures of lines which are known as _ghats_. These they
say will enable them to climb the mountains leading to heaven in the
other world, while those who have not such marks will be pierced with
spears on their way up the ascent. It has already been suggested that
these marks may have given rise to the name of the Ghatyara division
of the tribe.