Several circumstances indicate that the Mahar is recognised as the
oldest resident of the plain country of Berar and Nagpur. In Berar
he is a village servant and is the referee on village boundaries and
customs, a position implying that his knowledge of them is the most
ancient. At the Holi festival the fire of the Mahars is kindled first
and that of the Kunbis is set alight from it. The Kamdar Mahar, who
acts as village watchman, also has the right of bringing the _toran_ or
rope of leaves which is placed on the marriage-shed of the Kunbis; and
for this he receives a present of three annas. In Bhandra the Telis,
Lohars, Dhimars and several other castes employ a Mahar _Mohturia_ or
wise man to fix the date of their weddings. And most curious of all,
when the Panwar Rajputs of this tract celebrate the festival of Narayan
Deo, they call a Mahar to their house and make him the first partaker
of the feast before beginning to eat themselves. Again in Berar [114]
the Mahar officiates at the killing of the buffalo on Dasahra. On the
day before the festival the chief Mahar of the village and his wife
with their garments knotted together bring some earth from the jungle
and fashioning two images set one on a clay elephant and the other on
a clay bullock. The images are placed on a small platform outside the
village site and worshipped; a young he-buffalo is bathed and brought
before the images as though for the same object. The Patel wounds
the buffalo in the nose with a sword and it is then marched through
the village. In the evening it is killed by the head Mahar, buried in
the customary spot, and any evil that might happen during the coming
year is thus deprecated and, it is hoped, averted. The claim to take
the leading part in this ceremony is the occasion of many a quarrel
and an occasional affray or riot Such customs tend to show that the
Mahars were the earliest immigrants from Bombay into the Berar and
Nagpur plain, excluding of course the Gonds and other tribes, who have
practically been ousted from this tract. And if it is supposed that
the Panwars came here in the tenth century, as seems not improbable,
[115] the Mahars, whom the Panwars recognise as older residents than
themselves, must have been earlier still, and were probably numbered
among the subjects of the old Hindu kingdoms of Bhandak and Nagardhan.