MHANG or Mang are scattered through all the northern parts of the Indian Peninsula, in the Bombay Presidency, Gujerat, Kandesh, the Konkan, and Kolhapur. They dwell outside the walls of the villages. They are tanners, workers in raw hides and leather, shoe and harness makers, messengers, scavengers, and executioners. They are never horse-keepers. Their avocations are the most abject, and only a very few have ever been known • to have the ability to read or They claim the right to have for food all cattle and camels and horses that die of disease, but in some villages this is disputed by the Dher ; and in the village of Dangopura, in 1866 and 1867, this point was for twenty months under litigation, the ultimate decision being in favour of the Dher.
In the Northern Dekhan are the sections Mhang Garoro, Hollar Mhang, Dekhan Mhang. The Mhang Garoro are also styled Pharasti or migrants, as they have no settled abode, but move from place to place begging. Their men and women assume other clothes, and smear their foreheads with the red kuku, a mixture of turmeric and safflower. They are also conjurors and sleight-of-hand adepts, from which they have their name Garori. The men also beat the dholak when practising their conjuring tricks.
The Hollar Albano. are village musicians ; at marriages, play on the sannai, a wooden musical instrument, and beat the dafra ; they are also labourers, and go messages.
The• Dekhan Mhang make brooms and mats from the date palm ; are also labourers, bring wood, marry girls under age, fall at the foot of the god Hanuman, but worship at a distance, not being allowed to approach the idol. They, like the Dher and the humble native Christian, are also prohibited approaching the house of any Hindu, but stand some yards off and intimate their presence by calling out baba, or maharaj, or ayer, i.e. father, great chief, lord, and, as with the
Dher, everything they have brought and every thing they touch, as also the place they touch, is unclean. If it be a metal dish it is passed through fire, and if cloth or other material, it is washed, or sprinkled with water, or placed on the ground for earth purification. They mount on horseback in procession to their marriage, a privilege which they prohibit to the Dher, and to the Teli or oilman.
The Mhang worship the leather ropes which they make. They also make cakes, which they place in the ground, and over it five stones and a lamp, and worship these. They worship generally all the local deities or village gods, the Ammun, Ai, Mata, Musoba, Mari Ai, Devi, Kandoba, etc., and the Mangir or ghosts of deceased relatives. Their Mangir, is the .form of a human being engraved on silver or copper, intended to repre sent a deceased father or mother ; sometimes it is a casket of copper, containing a silver figure of a man. The Mangir is worshipped at the dewali and dassarii, and at limas or moonless nights, and full moon and anniversaries. The figure is wor shipped by washing and burning frankincense. They bury or burn their dead. They place the corpse in tho ground, then bring a potful of water from the river, pour it on the body, and cover the dead with earth ; after three days they take food and place it over the dead.