[Social customs.] 21. They will not touch a Dhobi, a Chamâr, Dharkâr, Dom, or Ghasiya: nor the wife of the younger brother, the wife’s elder sister, paternal uncle’s wife, and a female connection through the marriage of children (samdhin). They eat beef, but in secret they will in fact eat any meat except that of the ass, the horse, the camel, snake, lizard, rat, and jackal. Women do not eat pork, [110] and they will not cook it in the cook-house where the sainted dead are worshipped. Men and women eat apart; first the children eat, then the men, of whom the head of the family eats last, and last of all the women. They always eat in leaf vessels. They all chew tobacco: even children five and six years old may be seen chewing. All drink liquor, but drunkenness is considered discreditable. They do not use opium or the drugs bhang and gânja. [Salutation and social status.] 22. Among themselves they salute in the form known as pâêlagi. If the husband is any time absent, on his return his wife touches his feet with her hands. Chamârs are the highest caste who will eat food touched by them. They carry their contempt for Brâhmans so far that they will not eat food touched by them, and if a Brâhman handle one of their water vessels they will pitch it out of the house. Their usual business is cutting wood and bamboos, and collecting silk cocoons, lac, dyes, and other jungle produce. It is only quite recently that they have taken to eating anything but jungle fruits. Now some of them cultivate, and as their name shows they are fond of the dahya form of cultivation, cutting and burning the jungle. They have a field goddess, Khetiyâr Devi, whom they propitiate with the offering of goat or a fowl. The women are reputed chaste in married life as far as intercourse with strangers to the caste is concerned, but there is certainly a very considerable amount of intertribal immorality. They have a fairly strong local organization which embraces some three or four villages, and is known as “the unity” (eka). The members meet occasionally to discuss matters of general interest. Its influence is said now to be decreasing. They are notorious for their laziness in field work, and for their readiness to abscond and leave their village on the first signs of scarcity. 23. The Bhuiyârs do not appear to have been separately recorded at the last Census. They have apparently been confused with the Brâhman Râjput Bhuînhârs of the Gangetic valley.