Note 1 — Dhākar

Dhākar.1—A small caste belonging solely to the Bastar State. In 1911 they numbered 5500 persons in Bastar, and it is noticeable that there were nearly twice as many women as men. The term Dhākar connotes a man of illegitimate descent and is applied to the Kirārs of the Central Provinces and perhaps to other castes of mixed Rājpūt origin. But in Bastar it is the special designation of a considerable class of persons who are the descendants of alliances between Brāhman and Rājpūt immigrants and women of the indigenous tribes. They are divided, like the Halbas, into two groups—Purāit or pure, and Surāit or mixed. The son of a Brāhman or Rājpūt father by a Rāwat (herdsman) or Halba mother is a Purāit, but one born from a woman of the Muria, Marār, Nai or Kalār castes is a Surāit. But these latter can become Purāits after two or three generations, and the same rule applies to the son of a Dhākar father by a Halba or Rāwat woman, who also ranks in the first place as a Surāit. Descendants of a Dhākar father by a Muria or other low-caste woman, however, always remain Surāits. The Purāits and Surāits form endogamous groups, and the latter will accept cooked food from the former. The more respectable Dhākars round Jagdalpur are now tending, however, to call themselves Rājpūts and refuse to admit any one of mixed birth into their community.