The tribe have panchayats or committees for the settlement of tribal
disputes and offences. A member of the panchayat is selected by general
consent, and holds office during good behaviour. The office is not
hereditary, and generally there does not seem to be a recognised
head of the panchayat. In Mandla there is a separate panchayat for
each village, and every Gond male adult belongs to it, and all have
to be summoned to a meeting. When they assemble five leading elderly
men decide the matter in dispute, as representing the assembly. Caste
offences are of the usual Hindu type with some variations. Adultery,
taking another man's wife or daughter, getting vermin in a wound,
being sent to jail and eating the jail food, or even having handcuffs
put on, a woman getting her ear torn, and eating or even smoking with
a man of very low caste, are the ordinary offences. Others are being
beaten by a shoe, dealing in the hides of cattle or keeping donkeys,
removing the corpse of a dead horse or donkey, being touched by a
sweeper, cooking in the earthen pots of any impure caste, a woman
entering the kitchen during her monthly impurity, and taking to wife
the widow of a younger brother, but not of course of an elder brother.
In the case of septs which revere a totem animal or plant, any act
committed in connection with that animal or plant by a member of
the sept is an offence within the cognisance of the panchayat. Thus
in Mandla the Kumhra sept revere the goat and the Markam sept the
crocodile and crab. If a member of one of these septs touches, keeps,
kills or eats the animal which his sept reveres, he is put out of caste
and comes before the panchayat. In practice the offences with which
the panchayat most frequently deals are the taking of another man's
wife or the kidnapping of a daughter for marriage, this last usually
occurring between relatives. Both these offences can also be brought
before the regular courts, but it is usually only when the aggrieved
person cannot get satisfaction from the panchayat, or when the offender
refuses to abide by its decision, that the case goes to court. If
a Gond loses his wife he will in the ordinary course compromise the
matter if the man who takes her will repay his wedding expenses; this
is a very serious business for him, as his wedding is the principal
expense of a man's life, and it is probable that he may not be able to
afford to buy another girl and pay for her wedding. If he cannot get
his wedding expenses back through the panchayat he files a complaint
of adultery under the Penal Code, in the hope of being repaid through
a fine inflicted on the offender, and it is perfectly right and just
that this should be done. When a girl is kidnapped for marriage, her
family can usually be induced to recognise the affair if they receive
the price they could have got for the girl in an ordinary marriage,
and perhaps a little more, as a solace to their outraged feelings.
The panchayat takes no cognisance of theft, cheating, forgery, perjury,
causing hurt and other forms of crime. These are not considered to be
offences against the caste, and no penalty is inflicted for them. Only
if a man is arrested and handcuffed, or if he is sent to jail for
any such crime, he is put out of caste for eating the jail food and
subjected in this latter case to a somewhat severe penalty. It is
not clear whether a Gond is put out of caste for murder, though Hindu
panchayats take cognisance of this offence.