Note 29 — Banjāra

Mr. Hīra Lāl suggests that this custom may have something to do with the phrase Athāra jāt ke gāyi, or ‘She has gone to the eighteen castes,’ used of a woman who has been turned out of the community. This phrase seems, however, to be a euphemism, eighteen castes being a term of indefinite multitude for any or no caste. The number eighteen may be selected from the same unknown association which causes the goat to be cut into eighteen pieces.