and's younger brother. The Basors are
musicians by profession, but in Betul the _narsingha_, a peculiar
kind of crooked trumpet, is the only implement which may be played
at the marriage of a widow. A woman marrying a second time forfeits
all interest in the property of her late husband, unless she is
without issue and there are no near relatives of her husband to take
it. Divorce is effected by the breaking of the woman's bangles in
public. If obtained by the wife, she must repay to her first husband
the expenditure incurred by him for her marriage when she takes a
second. But the acceptance of this payment is considered derogatory
and the husband refuses it unless he is poor.

5. Religion and social status.

The Basors worship the ordinary Hindu deities and also ghosts and
spirits. Like the other low castes they entertain a special veneration
for Devi. They profess to exorcise evil spirits and the evil eye,
and to cure other disorders and diseases through the agency of their
incantations and the goblins who do their bidding. They burn their
dead when they can afford it and otherwise bury them, placing the
corpse in the grave with its head to the north. The body of a woman
is wrapped in a red shroud and that of a man in a white one. They
observe mourning for a period of three to ten days, but in Jubbulpore
it always ends with the fortnight in which the death takes place;
so that a person dying on the 15th or 30th of the month is mourned
only for one day. They eat almost every kind of food, including
beef, pork, fowls, liquor and the leavings of others, but abjure
crocodiles, monkeys, snakes and rats. Many of them have now given
up eating cow's flesh in deference to Hindu feeling. They will take
food from almost any caste except sweepers, and one or two others,
as Joshi and Jasondhi, towards whom for some unexplained reason they
entertain a special aversion. They will admit outsiders belonging
to any caste from whom they can take food into the community. They
are generally considered as impure, and live outside the village,
and their touch conveys pollution, more especially in the Maratha
Districts. The ordinary village menials, as the barber and washerman,
will not work for them, and services of this nature are performed by
men of their own community. As, however, their occupation is not in
itself unclean, they rank above sweepers, Chamars and Dhobis. Temporary
exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offe