The caste do not admit outsiders. In the matter of food they eat flesh
and fish, but abstain from liquor and from eating fowls, except in
the Maratha country. They will take pakka food or that cooked without
water from Gujars, Raghuvansis and Lodhis. In the Nagpur country,
where the difference between katcha and pakka food is not usually
observed, they will not take it from any but Maratha Brahmans. Abirs
and Dhimars are said to eat with them, and the northern Brahmans will
take water from them. They have a caste panchayat or committee with
a hereditary president called Sethia, whose business it is to eat
first when admitting a person who has been put out of caste. Killing
a cat or a squirrel, selling a cow to a butcher, growing hemp or
selling shoes are offences which entail temporary excommunication
from caste. A woman who commits adultery with a man of another caste
is permanently excluded. The Kirars are tall in stature and well
and stoutly built. They have regular features and are generally of a
fair colour. They are regarded as quarrelsome and untruthful, and as
tyrannical landlords. As agriculturists they are supposed to be of
encroaching tendencies, and the proverbial prayer attributed to them
is, "O God, give me two bullocks, and I shall plough up the common
way." Another proverb quoted in Mr. Standen's Betul Settlement Report,
in illustration of their avarice, is "If you put a rupee between two
Kirars, they become like mast buffaloes in Kunwar." The men always wear
turbans, while the women may be distinguished in the Maratha country
by their adherence to the dress of the northern Districts. Girls are
tattooed on the back of their hands before they begin to live with
their husbands. A woman may not name her husband's elder brother or
even touch his clothes or the vessels in which he has eaten food. They
are not distinguished for cleanliness.