The Dhakars are mainly engaged in cultivation as farmservants and
labourers. Like the Halbas, they consider it a sin to heat or forge
iron, looking upon the metal as sacred. They eat the flesh of clean
animals, but abstain from both pigs and chickens, and some also do not
eat the peacock. A man as well as a woman is permanently expelled for
adultery with a person of lower caste, the idea of this rule being
no doubt to prevent degradation in the status of the caste from the
admission of the offspring of such unions. If one Dhakar beats another
with a shoe, both are temporarily put out of caste. But if a man
seduces a caste-man's wife and is beaten with a shoe by the husband,
he is permanently expelled, while the husband is readmitted after
a feast. On being received back into caste intercourse an offender
is purified by drinking water in which the image of a local god has
been dipped or the Raja of Bastar has placed his toe. Like other low
castes of mixed origin, they are very particular about each other's
status and will only accept cooked food from families who are well
known to them. At caste feasts each family or group of families cooks
for itself, and in some cases parents refuse to eat with the family
into which their daughter has married and hence cannot do so with
the girl herself.