The tribe are cultivators and farmservants, and practise shifting
cultivation. They work as village watchmen and also as the Majhi or
village headman and the Pujari or village priest. These officials
are paid by contributions of grain from the cultivators. And as
already seen, the Bhatras are employed as household servants and
will clean cooking-vessels. Since they act as village priests, it
may perhaps be concluded that the Bhatras like the Parjas are older
residents of Bastar than the bulk of the Gonds, and they have become
the household servants of the Hindu immigrants, which the Gonds would
probably disdain to do. Some of them wear the sacred thread, but in
former times the Bastar Raja would invest any man with this for a
fee of four or five rupees, and the Bhatras therefore purchased the
social distinction. They find it inconvenient, however, and lay it
aside when proceeding to their work or going out to hunt. If a man
breaks his thread he must wait till a Brahman comes round, when he
can purchase another.