The Parjas are cultivators, and grow rice and other crops in the
ordinary manner. Many of them are village headmen, and to these the
term Dhurwa is more particularly applied. The tribe will eat fowls,
pig, monkeys, the large lizard, field-rats, and bison and wild
buffalo, but they do not eat carnivorous animals, crocodiles, snakes
or jackals. Some of them eat beef while others have abjured it, and
they will not accept the leavings of others. They are not considered
to be an impure caste. If any man or woman belonging to a higher
caste has a _liaison_ with a Parja, and is on that account expelled
from their own caste, he or she can be admitted as a Parja. In their
other customs and dress and ornaments the tribe resemble the Gonds
of Bastar. Women are tattooed on the chest and arms with patterns of
dots. The young men sometimes wear their hair long, and tie it in a
bunch behind, secured by a strip of cloth.