The caste employ Brahmans for weddings, but not necessarily for
birth and death ceremonies. They eat flesh and fish, and the bulk
of the caste eat fowls and drink liquor, but the landowning section
abjures these practices. They will take food cooked with water from
Brahmans, and that cooked without water also from Rajputs, Kayasths and
Sunars. In Narsinghpur they also accept cooked food from such a low
caste as Rajjahrs, [99] probably because the Rajjhars are commonly
employed by them as farmservants, and hence have been accustomed
to carry their master's food. A similar relation has been found to
exist between the Panwar Rajputs and their Gond farmservants. The
higher class Lodhis make an inordinate show of hospitality at their
weddings. The plates of the guests are piled up profusely with food,
and these latter think it a point of honour never to refuse it or say
enough. When melted butter is poured out into their cups the stream
must never be broken as it passes from one guest to the other, or it
is said that they will all get up and leave the feast. Apparently a
lot of butter must be wasted on the ground. The higher clans seclude
their women, and these when they go out must wear long clothes
covering the head and reaching to the feet. The women are not allowed
to wear ornaments of a cheaper metal than silver, except of course
their glass bangles. The Mahalodhis will eat food cooked with water
in the cook-room and carried to the fields, which the higher clans
will not do. Their women wear the _sari_ drawn through the legs and
knotted behind according to the Maratha fashion, but whenever they
meet their husband's elder brother or any other elder of the family
they must undo the knot and let the cloth hang down round their legs
as a mark of respect. They wear no breast-cloth. Girls are tattooed
before adolescence with dots on the chin and forehead, and marks on
one hand. Before she is tattooed the girl is given sweets to eat,
and during the process the operator sings songs in order that her
attention may be diverted and she may not feel the pain. After she
has finished the operator mutters a charm to prevent evil spirits
from troubling the girl and causing her pain.