Note 110 — Volume II. (continued 2)

Social customs. 21. They will not touch a Dhobi, a Chamâr, Dharkâr, Dom, or Ghasiya: nor the wife of the younger brother, the wife’s elder sister, paternal uncle’s wife, and a female connection through the marriage of children (samdhin). They eat beef, but in secret they will in fact eat any meat except that of the ass, the horse, the camel, snake, lizard, rat, and jackal. Women do not eat pork,110 and they will not cook it in the cook-house where the sainted dead are worshipped. Men and women eat apart; first the children eat, then the men, of whom the head of the family eats last, and last of all the women. They always eat in leaf vessels. They all chew tobacco: even children five and six years old may be seen chewing. All drink liquor, but drunkenness is considered discreditable. They do not use opium or the drugs bhang and gânja.