duelling days. So if one Dangi said it to another, meaning to ask
him for the dish, it might result in a fight. They are very backward
in respect of education and set no store by it. They consider their
traditional occupation to be military service, but nearly all of them
are now engaged in agriculture. At the census of 1901 over 2000 were
returned as supported by the ownership of land and 3000 as labourers
and farmservants. Practically all the remainder are tenants. They
are industrious, and their women work in the fields. The only crops
which they object to grow are _kusum_ or safflower and san-hemp. The
Nahonia Dangis, being the highest subcaste, refuse to sell milk or
_ghi_. The men usually have Singh as a termination to their names,
like Rajputs. Their dress and ornaments are of the type common in
the northern Districts. The women tattoo their bodies.

Dangri

_Dangri._ [508]--A small caste of melon and vegetable growers, whose
name is derived from _dangar_ or _dangra_, a water-melon. They reside
in the Wardha and Bhandara Districts, and numbered about 1800 persons
in 1911. The caste is a mixed one of functional origin, and appears to
be an offshoot from the Kunbis with additions from other sources. In
Wardha they say that their ancestor was one of two brothers to whom
Mahadeo gave the seeds of a juari plant and a water-melon respectively
for sowing. The former became the ancestor of the Kunbis and the latter
of the Dangris. On one occasion when Mahadeo, assuming the guise of a
beggar, asked the Dangri brother for a water-melon, he refused to give
it, and on this account his descendants were condemned to perpetual
poverty. In fact, the Dangris, like the other market-gardening castes,
are badly off, possibly on account of their common habit of marrying
a number of wives, whom they utilise as labourers in their vegetable
gardens; for though a wife is better than a hired labourer for their
particular method of cultivation, where supervision is difficult
and the master may be put to serious loss from bad work and petty
pilfering, while there is also much scope for women workers; yet on
the other hand polygamy tends to the breeding of family quarrels and
to excessive subdivision of property. The close personal supervision
which is requisite perhaps also renders it especially difficult to
carry on the business of market-gardening on a large scale. In any
case the agricultural holdings of the Malis and Dangri