The Dhanuhars, being a small tribe, have no endogamous divisions,
but are divided into a number of totemistic exogamous septs. Many of
the septs are called after plants or animals, and members of the sept
refrain from killing or destroying the animal or plant after which it
is named. The names of the septs are generally Chhattisgarhi words,
though a few are Gondi. Out of fifty names returned twenty are also
found in the Kawar tribe and four among the Gonds. This makes it
probable that the Dhanuhars are mainly an offshoot from the Kawars
with an admixture of Gonds and other tribes. A peculiarity worth
noticing is that one or two of the septs have been split up into a
number of others. The best instance of this is the Sonwani sept,
which is found among several castes and tribes in Chhattisgarh;
its name is perhaps derived from _Sona pani_ (Gold water), and its
members have the function of readmitting those temporarily expelled
from social intercourse by pouring on them a little water into which
a piece of gold has been dipped. Among the Dhanuhars the Sonwani
sept has become divided into the Son-Sonwani, who pour the gold
water over the penitent; the Rakat Sonwani, who give him to drink
a little of the blood of the sacrificial fowl; the Hardi Sonwani,
who give turmeric water to the mourners when they come back from
a funeral; the Kari Sonwani, who assist at this ceremony; and one
or two others. The totem of the Kari Sonwani sept is a black cow,
and when such an animal dies in the village members of the sept
throw away their earthen pots. All these are now separate exogamous
septs. The Deswars are another sept which has been divided in the
same manner. They are, perhaps, a more recent accession to the tribe,
and are looked down on by the others because they will eat the flesh
of bison. The other Dhanwars refuse to do this because they say that
when Sita, Rama's wife, was exiled in the jungles, she could not find
a cow to worship and so revered a bison in its stead. And they say
that the animal's feet are grey because of the turmeric water which
Sita poured on them, and that the depression on its forehead is the
mark of her hand when she placed a _tika_ or sign there with coloured
rice. The Deswars are also called Dui Duaria or 'Those having two
doors,' because they have a back door to their huts which is used
only by women during their monthly period of impurity and kept shut
at all other times. One of the septs is named Manakhia, which means
'man-eater,' and it is possible that its members formerly offered human
sacrifices. Similarly, the Rakat-bund or 'Drop of blood Deswars' may
be so called because they shed human blood. A member of the Telasi or
'Oil' sept, when he has killed a deer, will cut off the head and bring
it home; placing it in his courtyard, he suspends a burning lamp over
the head and places grains of rice on the forehead of the deer; and
he then considers that he is revering the oil in the lamp. Members of
the Surajgoti or sun sept are said to have stood as representatives
of the sun in the rite of the purification of an offender.