In Sir R. Jenkins' time, a century ago, the Gonds were represented as
naked savages, living on roots and fruits, and hunting for strangers to
sacrifice. About fifty years later, when Mr. Hislop wrote, the Maria
women of the wilder tracts were said only to have a bundle of leafy
twigs fastened with a string round their waist to cover them before
and behind. Now men have a narrow strip of cloth round the waist and
women a broader one, but in the south of Bastar they still leave their
breasts uncovered. Here a woman covers her breasts for the first time
when she becomes pregnant, and if a young woman did it, she would be
thought to be big with child. In other localities men and women clothe
themselves more like Hindus, but the women leave the greater part of
the thighs bare, and men often have only one cloth round the loins
and another small rag on the head. They have bangles of glass, brass
and zinc, and large circlets of brass round the legs, though these are
now being discarded. In Bastar both men and women have ten to twenty
iron and brass hoops round their necks, and on to these rings of the
same metal are strung. Rai Bahadur Panda Baijnath counted 181 rings
on one hoop round an old woman's neck. In the Maria country the boys
have small separate plots of land, which they cultivate themselves
and use the proceeds as their pocket-money, and this enables them to
indulge in a profusion of ornaments sometimes exceeding those worn
by the girls. In Mandla women wear a number of strings of yellow and
bluish-white beads. A married woman has both colours, and several
cowries tied to the end of the necklace. Widows and girls may only
wear the bluish-white beads without cowries, and a remarried widow
may not have any yellow beads, but she can have one cowrie on her
necklace. Yellow beads are thus confined to married women, yellow
being the common wedding-colour. A Gond woman is not allowed to wear
a choli or little jacket over the breasts. If she does she is put
out of caste. This rule may arise from opposition to the adoption of
Hindu customs and desire to retain a distinctive feature of dress,
or it may be thought that the adoption of the choli might make Gond
women weaker and unfitted for hard manual labour, like Hindu women. A
Gond woman must not keep her cloth tucked up behind into her waist
when she meets an elderly man of her own family, but must let it down
so as to cover the upper part of her legs. If she omits to do this,
on the occasion of the next wedding the Bhumka or caste priest will
send some men to catch her, and when she is brought the man to whom
she was disrespectful will put his right hand on the ground and she
must make obeisance to it seven times, then to his left hand, then to
a broom and pestle, and so on till she is tired out. When they have a
sprain or swelling of the arm they make a ring of tree-fibre and wear
this on the arm, and think that it will cure the sprain or swelling.