which determined their
social position, it seems certain that Brahmans would not take water
from their hands as they do. Elsewhere Sir D. Ibbetson remarks: [159]
"The Malis and Sainis, like all vegetable growers, occupy a very
inferior position among the agricultural castes; but of the two the
Sainis are probably the higher, as they more often own land or even
whole villages, and are less generally mere market-gardeners than
are the Malis." Here is given what may perhaps be the true reason
for the status of the Mali caste as a whole. Again Sir C. Elliot
wrote in the _Hoshangabad Settlement Report_: "Garden crops are
considered as a kind of fancy agriculture and the true cultivator,
the Kisan, looks on them with contempt as little peddling matters;
what stirs his ambition is a fine large wheat-field eighty or a
hundred acres in extent, as flat as a billiard-table and as black as
a Gond." Similarly Mr. Low [160] states that in Balaghat the Panwars,
the principal agricultural caste, look down on the Marars as growers
of petty crops like _sama_ and kutki. In Wardha the Dangris, a small
caste of melon and vegetable growers, are an offshoot of the Kunbis;
and they will take food from the Kunbis, though these will not accept
it from them, their social status being thus distinctly lower than that
of the parent caste. Again the Kohlis of Bhandara, who grow sugarcane
with irrigation, are probably derived from an aboriginal tribe, the
Kols, and, though they possess a number of villages, rank lower than
the regular cultivating castes. It is also worth noting that they do
not admit tenant-right in their villages among their own caste, and
allot the sugarcane plots among the cultivators at pleasure. [161] In
Nimar the Malis rank below the Kunbis and Gujars, the good agricultural
castes, and it is said that they grow the crops which the cultivators
proper do not care to grow. The Kachhis, the gardening caste of the
northern Districts, have a very low status, markedly inferior to that
of the Lodhis and Kurmis and little if any better than the menial
Dhimars. Similarly, as will be seen later, the Marars themselves
have customs pointing clearly to a non-Aryan origin. The Bhoyars of
Betul, who grow sugarcane, are probably of mixed origin from Rajput
fathers and mothers of the indigenous tribes; they eat fowls and are
much addicted to liquor and rank below the cultivating castes. The
explanation seems to be that the gardening castes are not