Unsettled Tribe.

Of Unsettled Tribes, there five were with a strength of 14,814 (males 7528, females 7286) or 4.10 per cent of the Hindu population. Of these 10 (males 7, females 3) were Bhils; 10,292 (males 5100, females 5192) Kathkaris; 3629 (males 1916, females 1713) Thakurs; 232 (males 106, females 126) Vadars; and 651 (males 399, females 252) Vanjaris.

BHILS are returned as numbering ten and as found in Mahad and Pen, KATHKARIS are cultivators, labourers, and firewood sellers. Their women are handworkers and help them by hawking headloads of firewood. Kathkaris, as a rule, are much darker and slimmer than the other forest tribes. Their women are tall and slim, singularly dirty and unkempt, and the children can always be known by their gaunt pinched look. In speaking to one another they use a patois, which on examination proves to he a slightly disguised Marathi. They have no peculiar language and show no signs of ever having had one. They rank among the very lowest tribes, their touch being thought to defile. Their huts are of mud-daubed karvi with a peaked roof thatched with palm leaves. Poor as the hut is, there is generally a separate cook-room. As a rule the only furniture is a few earthen pots and pans,, several hens and dogs, a few fishing traps, perhaps a how and arrows, and a couple of Stones for crushing kusai seed. They eat every sort of flesh except the cow and the brownfaced monkey. They never work except when forced by want. The men generally wear a loincloth, a blanket, and some tattered cloth round their heads. The women wear a robe and no bodice. They are very poor, being much given to drinking, and passing days together without wholesome food. THAKURS are returned from the whole district. Their surnames are Vir, Moreh, Dombari, Vagh, Mohite, and Pardhi. They are a small squat tribe, many of them especially the women disfigured by swollen bellies, most of them with hard irregular features in some degree redeemed by an honest kindly expression. The men almost always shave the head except the top-knot which is carefully grown. They speak Marathi. They are truthful, honest, and harmless. They are hardworking, the women doing quite as much work as the men. They are husbandmen working in the fields during the hot, rainy, and early cold-weather months. At other times they find stray jobs, gather firewood for sale, and wild fruits and roots for their own eating. They live in huts of wattle and daub with roofs of palm-leaves. Near their houses, if there is an open space and water, they grow vegetables. They have a few metal cooking pots, some nets, a bow, arrows, and perhaps a musical instrument with one string, kuka. Their food is such coarse grain as vari and nachni, wild vegetables, and roots. They are very particular about their drinking water, always choosing a spring or a good well, and taking great pains to keep the water pure. Though sober they drink freely on grand occasions, such as marriages and caste meetings. The men wear a loincloth, and occasionally a waistcloth, a blanket, and a piece of cloth tied round the head. The women wear a robe very tightly wound round the waist so as to leave almost the whole leg bare. The end of the robe is always tucked in at the waist and never drawn over the head. The only covering of the upper part of the body is a very scanty bodice and a heavy necklace of several rounds of white and blue glass beads. The Thakurs have a strong belief in spirits, and are great worshippers of Hirva, and are often possessed by Vaghya. They are poor but better off than the Kalhkaris. VADARS as returned as numbering 232 and as found over the whole district, except Mahad. Their home tongue is Telugu, but with others they speak Marathi. They are rude, intemperate, and unsettled in their habits, gathering wherever a building is going on. They are quarrymen and make grind-stones, hand-mills, and rolling pins. They dig wells and ponds, and trade in and carry salt and grain. They live in huts of mats and sticks, and eat almost any thing. They are very poor, living from hand to mouth. VANJARIS, also called Lamaus, are found over the whole district with droves of pack-bullocks. They come during the fair season from the Deccan to the towns and ports of Kolaba, bringing grain and taking salt. They speak a broken Marathi and are a hardworking people. Their staple food is rice, vari, uachni, and fish. They are fairly off.

Depressed Classes.

Of Depressed Classes there were three with a strength of 34,876  (males 17,097, females 17,779). Of those 29 (males 15, females 14) were Bhangis; 34,477 (males 16,898, females 17,579) Mhars; and 370 (males 181, females 186) Mangs. BHANGIS are found in the municipal towns of Alibag, Pen, Roha, and Mahad. They have been brought into the district since the establishment of municipalities to act as scavengers. They are well-paid and in easy circumstances. MHARS are returned as found over the whole district. They claim to be village servants, and in many villages are authorities in the matter of boundaries, carry Government treasure, escort travellers, and dispose of the carcasses of dead animals. They get small grants of grain from the villagers. But their position as village servants is not well established, the grants from the villagers being small and, except in a few cases, not supplemented by any Government allowance. A considerable number find employment in the Bombay army. They are on the whole a poor people. MANGS are found in small numbers over the whole district. They hold the lowest position among Hindus, and as a class are poor.

Beggars

Of Beggars there were eleven classes with a strength of 3232  (males 1672, females 1560) or 0.89 per cent of the Hindu population. Of these 10 (males 5, females 5) were Bharadis 3 (all males) Chitrakathis; 271 (males 172, females 99) Gondhlis; 14 (males 7, females 7) Gopals; 1154 (males 593, females 561) Gosavis; 23 (males 12, females 11) Holars; 1375 (males 693, females 682) Jangams; 3 (males 2, female 1) Jogis; 237 (males 103, females 132) Joshis; 133 (males 72, females 61) Kolhatis ; and 9 (males 8, female 1) Panguls.

BHARADIS wander about the district like Jogis. They speak good Marathi and wear long dirty clothes, and beg, chanting songs in honour of Ambabai or Sapta-Shringi, and dance with lighted torches in their hands. They are a falling class. CHITRAKATHIS or picture-showers, come occasionally from the Deccan, begging from door to door, offering to show two or three dozen paintings of the ten incarnations of Vishnu. In speech, food, and dress, they do not differ from low class Marathas. GONDHLIS are returned as found over the whole district. They beg in the name of the goddess Bhavani. GOPALS come like the Chitrakathis from the Deccan. They are honoured as priests by the Mhars. They sing and dance, begging from door to door. In speech, dress, and diet, they do not differ from low class Marathas. GOSAVIS are returned as found over the whole district. Their numbers seem to be declining. HOLARS, who are Mangs in the Deccan and Mhars in the Southern Maratha Country, are beggars who come from the Deccan and dance with a stick ornamented with peacock's feathers and hung with bells. They speak a broken Marathi. Except that they eat beef, they do not differ in food or in dress from low class Marathas. JANGAMS are returned as numbering' 1375 and as found over the whole district. They have no subdivisions, and their surnames are Ganchari, Kedari, Mahabin, Ubhale, Devark, Mhaskar, Padhaveh, and Mahagunde. They came into the district from Shinganpur and Shambhu Mahadev in the Satara district and the Karnatik, Both men and women look like Marathas and Gosavis. Their children are named by some one among them who is considered learned. They beg, act as ministrants to village gods, and cultivate, They are in a wretched state, and there is no likelihood of their improving. JOGIS or YOGIS come from the Deccan and wander about the district. Some speak Hindustani and some Marathi. A few belong to the slit-ear or Kanphate sect, who wear huge round pieces of wood or ivory in their ears. The rest are either prophets, telling what is going to happen, or they are showmen carrying about misformed bullocks and other animals. Their staple food is millet and pulse, but they have no objection to fish or any animal food, except beef and pork. They live either in rest-houses or under cloth canopies, which, they take with them. Most of them worship Shiv They bury their dead, Joshis, or astrologers, also known as Kudbude or drum-beating astrologers, are a class of Maratha beggars. They occasionally come to the district from Ratnagiri. Some of them know how to read and write Marathi, foretell events by a reference to the Marathi calendar, and tell fortunes from lines on the hand In speech, dress, and food, they do not differ from low-class Marathas. KOLHATIS, who wander in small bauds over the district in the fair months, are tumblers, and their women prostitutes. PANGULS are Deccan Kunbi beggars, who wander through the streets early in. the morning, shouting the names of Hindu gods. Some dance and sing from door- to door, calling or Vithoba. They wear long ragged coats and while turbans, and in language and food do not differ from Marathas.