e. Similarly, the Mahars are the
warmest adherents of the Muhammadan saint Sheikh Farid, and flock
to the fairs held in his honour at Girar in Wardha and Partapgarh in
Bhandara, where he is supposed to have slain a couple of giants. [126]
In Berar [127] also they revere Muhammadan tombs. The remains of the
Muhammadan fort and tank on Pimpardol hill in Jalgaon taluk are now
one of the sacred places of the Mahars, though to the Muhammadans they
have no religious associations. Even at present Mahars are inclined to
adopt Islam, and a case was recently reported when a body of twenty
of them set out to do so, but turned back on being told that they
would not be admitted to the mosque. [128] A large proportion of the
Mahars are also adherents of the Kabirpanthi sect, one of the main
tenets of whose founder was the abolition of caste. And it is from
the same point of view that Christianity appeals to them, enabling
European missionaries to draw a large number of converts from this
caste. But even the Hindu attitude towards the Mahars is not one of
unmixed intolerance. Once in three or four years in the southern
Districts, the Panwars, Mahars, Pankas and other castes celebrate
the worship of Narayan Deo or Vishnu, the officiating priest being a
Mahar. Members of all castes come to the Panwar's house at night for
the ceremony, and a vessel of water is placed at the door in which they
wash their feet and hands as they enter; and when inside they are all
considered to be equal, and they sit in a line and eat the same food,
and bind wreaths of flowers round their heads. After the cock crows the
equality of status is ended, and no one who goes out of the house can
enter again. At present also many educated Brahmans recognise fully
the social evils resulting from the degraded position of the Mahars,
and are doing their best to remove the caste prejudices against them.

11. Superstitions

They have various spells to cure a man possessed of an evil spirit,
or stung by a snake or scorpion, or likely to be in danger from tigers
or wild bears; and in the Morsi taluk of Berar it is stated that they
so greatly fear the effect of an enemy writing their name on a piece of
paper and tying it to a sweeper's broom that the threat to do this can
be used with great effect by their creditors. [129] To drive out the
evil eye they make a small human image of powdered turmeric and throw
it into boiled water, mentioning as they do so the names o