DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

2.3] PARDHI CUSTOMS 29
clans are now patriarchal like the surrounding society. Original
matriarchy is further proven by the heavy bride-price 12 which has
still to be paid, as much as 800 to 1000 rupees, to the father of
the bride; the poorer the father, the greater the bride-price. The
money is earned by casual labour or-the sale of game and wild fruit,
for they beg scraps for their own food, paying neither rent nor taxes.
These illiterate tribesmen charge a heavy interest, 25 per cent per
annum (expressed as ‘ twenty for sixteen’) : refusal to repay may lead
to a quarrel. One in 1954 ended in two murders. Even then they
refused to give evidence before the police ; the whole dan or group of
clans met in private council (sabha) before the general chief
(patel) to try the case as usual. Evidence being given, the culprit
denied his guilt, so ordeal by red-hot iron or boiling oil was offered.
He refused, was taken as guilty, and sentenced accordingly. Similar
Munda customs are known (Roy 425). Now a dead body is tabu for
the tribe. If anyone dies in a settlement, the body is abandoned
in situ whenever possible ; the whole group of tented families
decamps in hasty flight. Hence no one can execute a great offender
directly ; at most, his hands and feet are hacked off, and he is left to
die in the jungle. Since the police make this procedure difficult
today, the offender could defy tribal law; so the tribe is breaking up
on the belief that the virtue has gone out of their gods because the
ancient way of the gods (i.e. tribal custom) is no longer being
followed. There never was any question of racial purity, for
strangers used to be adopted into a clan on payment of a fee. The
real basic reason for their new willingness to abandon tribal life is its
impossibility : game has almost vanished, while none of them can
afford a hunting licence. Unwilling though they be to work steadily,
the alternative is starvation, for beggary daily becomes more and
more uncertain. Soon, the remnants must find, jobs — the
superior eyesight and hearing which makes them so good at snaring
quail and pilfering their neighbours’ poultry at night also makes them
excellent watchmen. However the Pardhis cannot hunt anything
bigger than a hare, for they have no weapons. They use a simple
knife, shaped like a shoemaker’s, to make beautiful collapsible snares
in light wooden frames, yet neglect the use of other tools or