The caste eat flesh and fish and drink liquor, and in the Maratha
Districts they will eat chickens like most castes of this country. In
Mandla they have recently prohibited the keeping of fowls, under pain
of temporary expulsion. Those who took food in charity-kitchens during
the famine of 1900 were readmitted to the community with the penalty
of shaving the beard and moustaches in the case of a man, and cutting
a few hairs from the head in that of a woman. In Berar the Lad, Jain
and Katghar Koshtis are all strict vegetarians. The Koshtis employ
Brahmans for their ceremonies, but their social status is about on a
level with the village menials, below the cultivating castes. This,
however, is a very good position for weavers, as most of the weaving
castes are stigmatised as impure. But the Koshtis live in towns and not
in villages and weave the finer kinds of cloth for which considerable
skill is required, while in former times their work also yielded a good
remuneration. These facts probably account for their higher status;
similarly the Tantis or weavers of Bengal who produce the fine muslins
of Dacca, so famous in Mughal times, have obtained such a high rank
there that Brahmans will take water from their hands; [620] while
the few Tantis who are found in the Central Provinces are regarded as
impure and are not touched. The caste are of a turbulent disposition,
perhaps on account of their comparatively light work, which does not
tire their bodies like cultivation and other manual labour. One or
two serious riots have been caused by the Koshtis in recent years.