DHANGAR is the Danaga of the Canarese speaking races. The Dhangar in Telingana are in twelve tribes, who do not eat together nor intermarry. In the centre and south of the Penin sula, Dhangar aro shepherds and wool-weavers, kitchen gardeners and labourers. In the hill country of Ramgarh and Chutia Nagpur, there is a tribe so called, some of whom descend periodi cally into the plains for labour. There are 8059 Dhaugar in Amraoti. Many Dhangar are settled in the towns of the south of India, occupied as labourers, kitchen gardeners, and dairymen, and they arrancre themselves accordingly. Dhangars have largely settled as cultivators in the Indapur, Bhimatherry, and Purandhar talukas of the Bombay Presidency. The Maharaja Holkar, the sovereign of Malwa, whose capital is Indur, is a Dhangar. The Asal, or pure Dhangar, are pastoral only. The pastoral Segar Dhangar also weave blankets. The Teling Dhangar are cultivators, milkmen, and weavers of coarse woollens. The Mahratta Dhangar graze cattle and sheep, and clarify their butter into ghi. The Bangar Dhangar are purely shepherds, as is indicated by the term Ban-gar,' wild man or forest man.
The Dhangar of the peninsular Dekhan are of two sections, the Kota Pullia Dhangar, who keep sheep, and the Barji Hatkar, or shepherds with the spears.' The latter still hold much land on the N. borders of the 'Nizam's territory, and, until the British took it over, were notorious for pugnacity and rebellion, and they still continue a quarrelsome aud obstinate race. They are sup posed to have come from Hindustan in twelve tribes, and been impelled by the Gonds towards Hingoli and Bassim, which locality got the name of Bara Hatia, or the twelve tribes. They now occupy the hills on the north bank of the Pain Ganga. To die in the chase or in war •is deemed honourable •, and the Hatkar who is so killed is burned with his feet to the east ; otherwise be is interred sitting with a. small piece of gold in his
mouth. The Hatkar are fine, able-bodied men, independent but arrogant ; many of them never shave nor cut the hair of their face. The Hatkar can only have one laggan, but may have several pat wives. Their widows can contract a pat mar riage. • The Dhangar in the centre of the Peninsula are dark, almost black men, of slender and spare forms; they are quite dissimilar from the Gaoli in personal appearance, and all the sheep (Kuru, Karnatica, a sheep) are under the Kurubaru or Kurumbar race. They are also wholly distinct from the Ydayan or Yadava cowherd race, who are known in all the Tamil country as Filial.' In all probability the dispersed Kurumbar of the Peninsula of India, some of them in towns aud others almost nomade, are the fragments of the great shepherd race who held sway in the Arcot district in the early centuries of the Christian era. The Kurumbar and Dhaugar have no similarity in appearance.
Dhangar, in the Lukti territory, bordering on Udaipur and Sultanpur, are short but muscular and able-bodied men, who speak a separate lan guage. They do not follow Hindu rites, and they have no temples, but set up near their villages a stone with some rude carvings, which they worship in times of famine or sickness or calamity. They bury but somethnes bum their dead.
The Gaola is a. cowherd, a dairyman, from Hindustan to Hyderabad.
The Kurubar are in the Caira'rese region, in the centre of the Peninsula. The Kurubar or Kurum bar and the Gaola dairymen keep aloof from each other.
The Mirda are a caste of migratory shepherds in the south of India.—C. T. P. C. R. pp. 6 and 7 ; Campbell, p. 33.