The tribe consider military service to be their traditional occupation,
but the bulk of them are now cultivators and labourers. Many of them
are farmers of villages in the zamindaris. Rautias weave ropes and
make sleeping-cots, but the other Kawars consider such work to be
degrading. They have the ordinary Hindu rules of inheritance, but a son
claiming partition in his father's lifetime is entitled to two bullocks
and nothing more. When the property is divided on the death of the
father, the eldest son receives an allowance known as jithai over and
above his share, this being a common custom in the Chhattisgarh country
where the Kawars reside. The tribe do not admit outsiders with the
exception of Kaurai Rawat girls married to Kawars. They have a tribal
panchayat or committee, the head of which is known as Pardhan. Its
proceedings are generally very deliberate, and this has led to the
saying: "The Ganda's panchayat always ends in a quarrel; the Gond's
panchayat cares only for the feast; and the Kawar's panchayat takes
a year to make up its mind." But when the Kawars have decided, they
act with vigour. They require numerous goats as fines for the caste
feast, and these, with fried urad, form the regular provision. Liquor,
however, is only sparingly consumed. Temporary exclusion from caste
is imposed for the usual offences, which include going to jail,
getting the ears split, or getting maggots in a wound. The last
is the most serious offence, and when the culprit is readmitted to
social intercourse the Dhobi (washerman) is employed to eat with him
first from five different plates, thus taking upon himself any risk
of contagion from the impurity which may still remain. The Kawar
eats flesh, fowls and pork, but abjures beef, crocodiles, monkeys
and reptiles. From birds he selects the parrot, dove, pigeon, quail
and partridge as fit for food. He will not eat meat sold in market
because he considers it halali or killed in the Muhammadan fashion,
and therefore impure. He also refuses a particular species of fish
called rechha, which is black and fleshy and has been nicknamed
'The Teli's bullock.' The higher subtribes have now given up eating
pork and the Tanwars abstain from fowls also. The Kawars will take
food only from a Gond or a Kaurai Rawat, and Gonds will also take
food from them. In appearance and manners they greatly resemble the
Gonds, from whom they are hardly distinguished by the Hindus. Dalton
[421] described them as "A dark, coarse-featured, broad-nosed,
wide-mouthed and thick-lipped race, decidedly ugly, but taller and
better set up than most of the other tribes. I have also found them
a clean, well-to-do, industrious people, living in comfortable,
carefully-constructed and healthily-kept houses and well dressed."
Of their method of dancing Ball [422] writes as follows: "In the
evening some of the villagers--Kaurs they were I believe--entertained
us with a dance, which was very different from anything seen among the
Santals or Kols. A number of men performed a kind of ladies' chain,
striking together as they passed one another's pronged sticks which
they carried in their hands. By foot, hand and voice the time given
by a tom-tom is most admirably kept."