that they have become literate
and taken service under Government, the Guraos now rank above the
cultivators and are called Shaiva Brahmans. The Gondhalis are the
village priests of Devi, the earth-goddess, who is also frequently
the tutelary goddess of the village. They play the kettle-drum and
perform dances in her honour, and were formerly classed as one of
the village menials of Maratha villages, though they now work for
hire. The Garpagari, or hail-averter, is a regular village menial, his
duty being to avert hail-storms from the crops, like the qalazof'ulax
in ancient Greece. The Garpagaris will accept cooked food from Kunbis
and celebrate their weddings with those of the Kunbis. The Jogis,
Manbhaos, Satanis, and others, are wandering religious mendicants, who
act as priests and spiritual preceptors to the lower classes of Hindus.

With the village priests may be mentioned the Mali or gardener. The
Malis now grow vegetables with irrigation or ordinary crops, but
this was not apparently their original vocation. The name is derived
from _mala_, a garland, and it would appear that the Mali was first
employed to grow flowers for the garlands with which the gods and
also their worshippers were adorned at religious ceremonies. Flowers
were held sacred and were an essential adjunct to worship in India
as in Greece and Rome. The sacred flowers of India are the lotus,
the marigold and the _champak_ [63] and from their use in religious
worship is derived the custom of adorning the guests with garlands at
all social functions, just as in Rome and Greece they wore crowns on
their heads. It seems not unlikely that this was the purpose for which
cultivated flowers were first grown, at any rate in India. The Mali
was thus a kind of assistant in the religious life of the village,
and he is still sometimes placed in charge of the village shrines and
is employed as temple-servant in Jain temples. He would therefore
have been supported by contributions from the cultivators like the
other village menials and have ranked below them, though on account
of the purity and sanctity of his occupation Brahmans would take
water from him. The Mali has now become an ordinary cultivator, but
his status is still noticeably below that of the good cultivating
castes and this seems to be the explanation. With the Mali may be
classed the Barai, the grower and seller of the _pan_ or betel-vine
leaf. This leaf, growing on a kind of creeper, like the v