While the freebooting Pindaris had no regular caste organisation,
their descendants have now become more or less of a caste in
accordance with the usual tendency of a distinctive occupation,
producing a difference in status, to form a fresh caste. The existing
Pindaris in the Central Provinces are both Muhammadans and Hindus, the
Muhammadans, as already stated, having been originally the children
of Hindus who were kidnapped and converted. It is one of the very
few merits of the Pindaris that they did not sell their captives to
slavery. Their numerous prisoners of all ages and both sexes were
employed as servants, made over to the chiefs or held to ransom from
their relatives, but the Pindaris did not carry on like the Banjaras
a traffic in slaves. [446] The Muhammadan Pindaris were said some
time ago to have no religion, but with the diffusion of knowledge
they have now adopted the rites of Islam and observe its rules and
restrictions. In Bhandara the Hindu Pindaris are Garoris or Gowaris,
They say that the ancestors of the Pindaris and Gowaris were two
brothers, the business of the Pindari brother being to tend buffaloes
and that of the Gowari brother to herd cows. These Pindaris will
beg from the owners of buffaloes for the above reason. They revere
the dog and will not kill it, and also worship snakes and tigers,
believing that these animals never do them injury. They carry their
dead to the grave in a sitting posture, seated in a _jholi_ or wallet,
and bury them in the same position. They wear their beards and do
not shave. Some of these Pindaris are personal servants, others
cultivators and labourers, and others snake-charmers and jugglers.