When residing in the centre of a Hindu population the Gonds inhabit mud
houses, like the low-class Hindus. But in the jungles their huts are of
bamboo matting plastered with mud, with thatched roofs. The internal
arrangements are of the simplest kind, comprising two apartments
separated from each other by a row of tall baskets, in which they
store up their grain. Adjoining the house is a shed for cattle,
and round both a bamboo fence for protection from wild beasts. In
Bastar the walls of the hut are only four or five feet high, and the
door three feet. Here there are one or two sheds, in which all the
villagers store their grain in common, and no man steals another's
grain. In Gond villages the houses are seen perched about on little
bluffs or other high ground, overlooking the fields, one, two and
three together. The Gond does not like to live in a street. He likes
a large bari or fenced enclosure, about an acre in size, besides
his house. In this he will grow mustard for sale, or his own annual
supply of tobacco or vegetables. He arranges that the village cattle
shall come and stand in the bari on their way to and from pasture,
and that the cows shall be milked there for some time. His family
also perform natural functions in it, which the Hindus will not do
in their fields. Thus the bari gets well manured and will easily
give two crops in the year, and the Gond sets great store by this
field. When building a new house a man plants as the first post a
pole of the saj tree, and ties a bundle of thatching-grass round it,
and buries a pice (1/4d.) and a bhilawa nut beneath it. They feed two
or three friends and scatter a little of the food over the post. The
post is called Khirkhut Deo, and protects the house from harm.
A brass or pewter dish and lota or drinking-vessel of the same
material, a few earthen cooking-pots, a hatchet and a clay chilam or
pipe-bowl comprise the furniture of a Gond.