The Panwar women wear their clothes tied in the Hindustani and not in
the Maratha fashion. They are tattooed on the legs, hands and face,
the face being usually decorated with single dots which are supposed
to enhance its beauty, much after the same fashion as patches in
England. Padmakar, the Saugor poet, Mr. Hira Lal remarks, compared the
dot on a woman's chin to a black bee buried in a half-ripe mango. The
women, Mr. Low says, are addicted to dances, plays and charades, the
first being especially graceful performances. They are skilful with
their fingers and make pretty grass mats and screens for the house,
and are also very good cooks and appreciate variety in food. The
Panwars do not eat off the ground, but place their dishes on little
iron stands, sitting themselves on low wooden stools. The housewife
is a very important person, and the husband will not give anything
to eat or drink out of the house without her concurrence. Mr. Low
writes on the character and abilities of the Panwars as follows:
"The Panwar is to Balaghat what the Kunbi is to Berar or the Gujar to
Hoshangabad, but at the same time he is less entirely attached to the
soil and its cultivation, and much more intelligent and cosmopolitan
than either. One of the most intelligent officials in the Agricultural
Department is a Panwar, and several members of the caste have made
large sums as forest and railway contractors in this District;
Panwar _shikaris_ are also not uncommon. They are generally averse
to sedentary occupations, and though quite ready to avail themselves
of the advantages of primary education, they do not, as a rule, care
to carry their studies to a point that would ensure their admission
to the higher ranks of Government service. Very few of them are
to be found as patwaris, constables or peons. They are a handsome
race, with intelligent faces, unusually fair, with high foreheads,
and often grey eyes. They are not, as a rule, above middle height,
but they are active and hard-working and by no means deficient in
courage and animal spirits, or a sense of humour. They are clannish
in the extreme, and to elucidate a criminal case in which no one but
Panwars are concerned, and in a Panwar village, is usually a harder
task than the average local police officer can tackle. At times
they are apt to affect, in conversation with Government officials,
a whining and unpleasant tone, especially when pleading their claim
to some concession or other; and they are by no means lacking in
astuteness and are good hands at a bargain. But they are a pleasant,
intelligent and plucky race, not easily cast down by misfortune and
always ready to attempt new enterprises in almost any direction save
those indicated by the Agricultural Department.
"In the art of rice cultivation they are past masters. They are skilled
tank-builders, though perhaps hardly equal to the Kohlis of Chanda. But
they excel especially in the mending and levelling of their fields,
in neat transplantation, and in the choice and adaptation of the
different varieties of rice to land of varying qualities. They are
by no means specially efficient as labourers, though they and their
wives do their fair share of field work; but they are well able to
control the labour of others, especially of aborigines, through whom
most of their tank and other works are executed."