The Kunbis eat three times a day, at about eight in the morning,
at midday and after dark. The morning meal is commonly eaten in the
field and the two others at home. At midday the cultivator comes home
from work, bathes and takes his meal, having a rest for about two
hours in all. After finishing work he again comes home and has his
evening meal, and then, after a rest, at about ten o'clock he goes
again to the fields, if the crops are on the ground, and sleeps on the
_mara_ or small elevated platform erected in the field to protect the
grain from birds and wild animals; occasionally waking and emitting
long-drawn howls or pulling the strings which connect with clappers
in various parts of the field. Thus for nearly eight months of the
year the Kunbi sleeps in his fields, and only during the remaining
period at home. Juari is the staple food of the caste, and is eaten
both raw and cooked. The raw pods of juari were the provision carried
with them on their saddles by the marauding Maratha horsemen, and the
description of Sivaji getting his sustenance from gnawing at one of
these as he rode along is said to have struck fear into the heart
of the Nizam. It is a common custom among well-to-do tenants and
proprietors to invite their friends to a picnic in the fields when
the crop is ripe to eat _hurda_ or the pods of juari roasted in hot
ashes. For cooking purposes juari is ground in an ordinary handmill
and then passed through a sieve, which separates the finer from the
coarser particles. The finer flour is made into dough with hot water
and baked into thick flat _chapatis_ or cakes, weighing more than half
a pound each; while the coarse flour is boiled in water like rice. The
boiled pulse of _arhar_ (_Cajanus indicus_) is commonly eaten with
juari, and the _chapatis_ are either dipped into cold linseed oil
or consumed dry. The sameness of this diet is varied by a number of
green vegetables, generally with very little savour to a European
palate. These are usually boiled and then mixed into a salad with
linseed or sesamum oil and flavoured with salt or powdered chillies,
these last being the Kunbi's indispensable condiment. He is also
very fond of onions and garlic, which are either chopped and boiled,
or eaten raw. Butter-milk when available is mixed with the boiled
juari after it is cooked, while wheat and rice, butter and sugar are
delicacies reserved for festivals. As a rule only water is drunk,
but the caste indulge in country liquor on festive occasions. Tobacco
is commonly chewed after each meal or smoked in leaf cigarettes,
or in _chilams_ or clay pipe-bowls without a stem. Men also take
snuff, and a few women chew tobacco and take snuff, though they
do not smoke. It is noticeable that different subdivisions of the
caste will commonly take food from each other in Berar, whereas in
the Central Provinces they refuse to do so. The more liberal usage
in Berar is possibly another case of Muhammadan influence. Small
children eat with their father and brothers, but the women always
wait on the men, and take their own food afterwards. Among the Dalia
Kunbis of Nimar, however, women eat before men at caste feasts in
opposition to the usual practice. It is stated in explanation that
on one occasion when the men had finished their meal first and gone
home, the women on returning were waylaid in the dark and robbed of
their ornaments. And hence it was decided that they should always eat
first and go home before nightfall. The Kunbi is fairly liberal in
the matter of food. He will eat the flesh of goats, sheep and deer,
all kinds of fish and fowls, and will drink liquor. In Hoshangabad
and Nimar the higher subcastes abstain from flesh and wine. The caste
will take food cooked without water from Brahmans, Banias and Sunars,
and that mixed with water only from Maratha Brahmans. All castes
except Maratha Brahmans will take water from the hands of a Kunbi.