The subcastes reported differ entirely from those recorded in
Orissa. In the Central Provinces they are mainly occupational. Thus
the Bajna or Bajgari are those who act as musicians at feasts and
marriages; the Mang or Mangia make screens and mats, while their women
serve as midwives; the Dholias make baskets; the Doms skin cattle and
the Nagarchis play on nakkaras or drums. Panka is also returned as a
subcaste of Ganda, but in the Central Provinces the Pankas are now
practically a separate caste, and consist of those Gandas who have
adopted Kabirpanthism and have thereby obtained some slight rise in
status. In Bengal Sir H. Risley mentions a group called Patradias,
or slaves and menials of the Khonds, and discusses the Patradias as
follows:--"The group seems also to include the descendants of Pans,
who sold themselves as slaves or were sold as Merias or victims to
the Khonds. We know that an extensive traffic in children destined
for human sacrifice used to go on in the Khond country, and that the
Pans were the agents who sometimes purchased, but more frequently
kidnapped, the children, whom they sold to the Khonds, and were so
debased that they occasionally sold their own offspring, though they
knew of course the fate that awaited them. [14] Moreover, apart from
the demand for sacrificial purposes, the practice of selling men as
agricultural labourers was until a few years ago by no means uncommon
in the wilder parts of the Chota Nagpur Division, where labour is
scarce and cash payments are almost unknown. Numbers of formal bonds
have come before me, whereby men sold themselves for a lump sum to
enable them to marry." The above quotation is inserted merely as an
interesting historical reminiscence of the Pans or Gandas.