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THE PEOPLE
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DRESS
The dress of the ordinary cultivator is most commonplace. It
consists only of a loincloth, another cloth thrown over the shoulders and the upper part, of the body which except for this is often bare. A third rough cloth loosely wound round the head serves as a turban. All these originally white soon assume a very dingy colour. Sometimes a bandi or loose white shirt is worn under the shoulder cloth. There is thus often no colour in a man's everyday attire, though the gala dress for the holidays consists of a red pagri or turban, a black coloured or white coat, and a white loincloth with red silk borders if he can afford it.
A well-to-do educated urbanite may use all the items of western dress ensemble including the 'bush-shirt' and 'bush-coat' of recent origin. Indoors be may be found using a striped pyjama and a half shirt or pairan. His outdoor dress varies between three types: A lenga (loose trousers) and a long shirt of the ' Nehru ' type or a pair of short pants and shorts, the flaps of the shirt either being allowed to hang loose on the shorts or tucked inside them. (2) A pair of trousers in combination with a shirt or a half shirt, a bush-coat or a bush-shirt. The sleeves of the shirt may be rolled up in a band above the elbow. (3) A full western suit including trousers, shirt, perhaps a waist coat and a neck-tie. For ceremonial occasions, he may prefer to dress in Indian style in a specious looking long coat called ackan or shervani and cudidar pyjamas or survar slightly gathered at the ankles with bracelet-like horizontal folds. A folded woollen or silk cap and cadhav or pump-shoe perfects the ensemble. Among the urbanite young men the use of dhotar has practically become extinct: it is in some evidence among the middle-aged and old. The sendi has long been discarded and they cut their hair short in imitation of the westerners. Shoes and boots are kept even indoors and the fashion of going about bare-headed is also coming into vogue.
A Hindu woman wears a lugde or single long cloth of red or black cotton and under this the coli or small breast-cloth. Women of the cultivating or lower castes are usually tattooed with four dots on the face, one in the centre of the forehead one on each cheek and one on the point of the chin. They also have a circle on the back of right hand. Gond and Kolam women are profusely tattooed on the arms but not usually on the legs. The local Gonds sometimes send for a skilful tattooer from Canda to operate on their wrists and arms. Men of the castes such as dhobis are to be seen with sect-marks on the fore-head, which usually consist of a circular dot of Sandalwood paste. Women of the working classes draw the loose ends of the sadi fluttering on the back from the left shoulder tightly in
front from underneath the right arm and tuck it in the wrap of the sadi at the waist. They do not also allow the manifold pleats to dangle low at the ankles but tuck them tightly at the back.
The sewn garment for the baby is the balute consisting of a triangular piece of cloth tied round its waist so as to cover the buttocks and the front. There is a topre which is a baby cap covering the ears and kunci which is a cap and frock sewn together. Angi is a general term indicating sewn garment for the upper body in which could be included jhable (frock), bandi, or peti (jacket) worn by the child. When the child grows two or three years old, a round or folded cap for the head, sadara or pairan for the upper part, caddi or short pants for the lower part are sewn for the use of boys and parkar (petticoat) caddi (panties), polka (bodice) and jhaga (frock) are sewn for girls.
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