ious Muhammadan practices. They
fast during the month of Ramazan, taking their food in the morning
before sunrise; and at Id they eat the vermicelli and dates which the
Muhammadans eat in memory of the time when their forefathers lived on
this food in the Arabian desert. Such customs are a relic of the long
period of Muhammadan dominance in Nimar, when the Hindus conformed
partly to the religion of their masters. Many Telis are also members
of the Swami-Narayan reforming sect, which may have attracted them
by its disregard of the distinctions of caste and of the low status
which attaches to them under Hinduism.

9. Customs at birth and death

In Patna State a pregnant woman must not cross a river nor eat any
fruit or vegetables of red colour, nor wear any black cloth. These
taboos preserve her health and that of her unborn child. After
the birth of a child a woman is impure for seven or nine days in
Chhattisgarh, and is then permitted to cook. The dead are either
buried or burnt, cremation being an honour reserved for the old. The
body is placed in both cases with the head to the north and face
downwards or upwards for a male or female respectively.

10. Social status

The social status of the Telis is low, in the group of castes
from which Brahmans will not take water, and below such menials as
the blacksmith and carpenter. Manu classes them with butchers and
liquor-vendors: "From a king not born in the military class let a
Brahman accept no gift nor from such as keep a slaughter-house,
or an oil-press, or put out a vintner's flag or subsist by the
gains of prostitutes." This is much about the position which the
Telis have occupied till recently. Brahmans will not usually enter
their houses, though they have begun to do so in the case of the
landholding subcastes. It is noticeable that the Teli has a much better
position in Bengal than elsewhere. Sir H. Risley says: "Their original
profession was probably oil-pressing, and the caste may be regarded
as a functional group recruited from the respectable middle class of
Hindu society. Oil is used by all Hindus for domestic and ceremonial
purposes, and its manufacture could only be carried on by men whose
social purity was beyond dispute." This is, however, quite exceptional,
and Mr. Crooke, Mr. Nesfield and Sir D. Ibbetson are agreed as to his
inferior, if not partly impure, status. This is only one of several
instances, such as those of the barber, the po