The Injhwars have four subcastes, three of the territorial and one
of the occupational class. These are the Lanjiwar, or those living
round Lanji in Balaghat; the Korre, or those of the Korai hill tract
in Seoni; the Chandewar or Maratha Injhwars who belong to Chanda, and
are distinguished by holding their weddings only in the evening after
the Maratha custom, while other Injhwars will perform the ceremony at
any time of day; and the Sonjharias, or those who have taken to washing
for gold in the beds of streams. Of their sept or family names some,
as already stated, are taken from the Gonds, as Mesram, Tekam, Marai,
Ukya. [172] Three names, Bhoyar, Kawara and Kohrya (from Kohli),
are the names of other castes or tribes, and indicate that members
of these became Injhwars and founded families; and others are of the
territorial, titular and totemistic types. Among them may be mentioned
the Pithvalyas, from pith, flour; all families of this sept should
steal a little rice from somebody else's field as soon as it is ripe,
husband and wife making a joint expedition for the purpose. They
must not speak a word to each other from the time they start until
they have brought back the rice, pounded and cooked it, offered it
to the god and made their meal. The Paunpats, named after the lotus,
will not touch the flowers or leaves of the lotus plants, or even drink
water from a tank in which the lotus grows. The Dobokria Rawats are so
named because they make an offering of two goats to their gods. Some of
the septs are subdivided. Thus the Sonwani or gold-water sept, whose
members readmit social culprits, is divided into the Paunpat or lotus
Sonwanis; the Gurhiwal, who revere a brass vessel tied to a bamboo on
the first day of the year; the Sati Sonwani, who worship the spirit
of a sati woman ancestor; and the Mungphatia Sonwanis, whose token is
the broken mung pulse. At present these subsepts cannot intermarry,
the union of any two Sonwanis being forbidden, but it seems likely
that intermarriage may be permitted in the course of time.