o which he agreed on condition that one
of the brothers should give his daughter to him in marriage. As
Mangal and his brothers were of one _gotra_ or section, and the
marriage would thus involve splitting up the _gotra_, the brothers
were doubtful whether it could be performed. They sought about for
some sign to determine this difficult question, and decided that if
Mangal succeeded in breaking in pieces an iron image of a cat simply
by blows of his naked fist, it would be a sufficient indication
that they might split up their _gotra_. Mangal was therefore put
to the ordeal and succeeded in breaking the image, so the three
brothers split up their _gotra_, the eldest assuming the _gotra_
name of Bhainsa because he had found a buffalo-horn, the second that
of Kalkhor, which is stated to mean peacock, and the third that of
Chhahri, which at any rate does not mean a plum. The word Chhahri
means either 'shadow,' or 'one who washes the clothes of a woman in
confinement.' If we assume it to have the latter meaning, it may be
due to the fact that Mangal had to wash the clothes of his own wife,
not being able to induce a professional washerman to do so on account
of the incestuous nature of the connection. As the eldest brother
gave his daughter in an incestuous marriage he was also degraded, and
became the ancestor of the Kanjars or prostitutes, who, it is said,
to the present day do not solicit Audhelias in consideration of the
consanguinity existing between them. The story itself sufficiently
indicates the low and mixed descent of the Audhelias, and its real
meaning may possibly be that when they first began to form a separate
caste they permitted incestuous marriages on account of the paucity of
their members. A curious point about the story is that the incestuous
nature of the connection is not taken to be the most pressing objection
to the marriage of Mangal with his own niece, but the violation of the
caste rule prohibiting marriage within the same _gotra_. Bachhawat
and Dhanawat are the names of sections of the Banjara caste, and
the persons of these _gotras_ among the Audhelias are probably
the descendants of illicit connections among Banjaras. The word
Pachbhaiya means 'five brothers,' and this name possibly commemorates a
polyandrous connection of some Audhelia woman. Limuan means a tortoise,
which is a section of many castes. Several of the section-names are
thus totemistic, and, as in other castes, some reverence is