[Manners and customs.] 2. The best available account of the manners and customs of the real Bhîls is that given by a writer in the Râjputâna Gazetteer: [55]—“All Bhîls go about armed with the tribal weapons, bows and arrows; except the headmen and others of consequence, who carry swords. They are a dirty race. The men wear their hair long, and hanging in uncombed masses from their shoulders. Their women are small and ugly, those of rank being distinguishable by the number of brass rings on their legs, often extending from the ankle to the knee. They kill and eat kine and are much addicted to spirits, vast quantities of which are consumed on festive occasions, which frequently end in quarrels and bloodshed. Fond of fighting, they resort to their weapons on the slightest provocation, but their most serious affrays arise out of cattle-lifting and the abduction of women. If a Bhîl run away with a betrothed girl, a feud will frequently ensue, which will not end till the villages of both sides have been burnt and many lives lost. As a rule they keep tolerably quiet in the winter and the rainy season; but in the summer, between the gathering in of the last harvest and the sowing of the next, they begin raiding on each other; and even the richest think this time, which hangs heavily on their hands, favourable for paying off old scores. There are sixty different sections of the Bhîl tribe in Bânswâra. [Marriage.] 3. “Bhîl children are not betrothed by their parents in their childhood. A Bhîl girl is often unmarried up to the age of twenty or twenty-five. Her father can take no steps of his own accord for his daughter’s marriage; were he to do so, suspicion would be aroused that there was something wrong with the girl. His friends can take steps on his behalf, but he himself must wait for a proposal from the father of some eligible lad, which he can entertain or not as he pleases. Should he accept the proposal, the lad’s father, having provided himself with a couple of pots of liquor, will return to complete the ceremony of betrothal (sagari), sitting down under some large tree or other cool spot in the village. The girl’s father and his friends join them, and the question as to the amount of money to be paid by the father of the lad to the father of the girl is there and then disposed of. This amount varies according to the means and status of the parties concerned from thirty to sixty rupees. When this is settled, the father of the boy makes a cup of leaves of the Dhâk tree (Butea frondosa), and placing it on the top of the pot of liquor, puts inside it two annas worth of copper coins. The girl’s brother or some other boy among her relations then takes the coin and turns the cup of leaves upside down. The betrothal is then complete; and nothing remains but to drink the liquor, which is done on the spot. The girl’s father then kills a goat and gives a feast to his future son-in-law and his father, after which the latter return home.