They have a caste panchayat or committee, the headman of which is
known as Kursha; he has jurisdiction over ten or twenty villages,
and is usually chosen from the Kotwar, Chanap or Naik sections. It
is the duty of the men of these sections to scatter the sonpani or
'water of gold' [147] as an act of purification over persons who
have been temporarily put out of caste for social offences. They
are also the first to eat food with such offenders on readmission
to social intercourse, and thereby take the sins of these persons
upon their own heads. In order to counteract the effect of this the
purifier usually asks three or four other men to eat with him at his
own house, and passes on a part of his burden to them. For such duties
he receives a payment of money varying from four annas to a rupee and
a half. Among the offences punished with temporary exclusion from
caste are those of rearing the lac insect and tasar silk cocoons,
probably because such work involves the killing of the insects and
caterpillars which produce the dye and silk. In Bastar a man loses
his caste if he is beaten with a shoe except by a Government servant,
and is not readmitted to it. If a man seduces a married woman and
is beaten with a shoe by her husband he is also finally expelled
from caste. But happily, Mr. Panda Baijnath remarks, shoes are very
scarce in the State, and hence such cases do not often arise. They
never yoke cows to the plough as other castes do in Bastar, nor do
they tie up two cows with the same rope.