Katkari

Clans and Kinship

Enthoven (1922) records five endogamous divisions: Athavar, Dhor or Dhed, Sidhi, Son or Maratha, and Varap. Enthoven notes that Son and Dhor divisions are found among the Kolis too. The exogamous divisions are surnames: among the Son Katkaris marriage between people of the same surname is forbidden, while the Dhor had no such rule; first cousins may not marry, second cousins may. Some surnames, such as More and Vaghmare, are thought to be totemic, though the totem is no longer revered. Each hamlet has a headman, the Naik, whom the people consult on all matters, and the groom's party stays at the bride's headman's house at a wedding.

The 32 surnames Enthoven (1922, vol. 2, 'Katkaris', section on exogamous divisions) gives, put back into his alphabetical order from the scanned columns; More is written Mora in the scan. The totems for More, Vaghmare and Wagh are the meanings of the words (peacock, tiger-killer, tiger), which Enthoven says were held to be totemic.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Tribe

  Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu

  Listed as: Kathodi, Katkari, Dhor Kathodi, Dhor Katkari, Son Kathodi, Son Katkari

  That is the entry in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka (Maharashtra writes Dhor Kathkari); in Dadra and Nagar Haveli simply 'Kathodi'.

The Katkari are a particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG), a group within the Scheduled Tribes given special attention, in Maharashtra, where the other two such groups are the Madia Gond and the Kolam, and the Kathodi in Gujarat, in the government list reproduced on Wikipedia from a 2019 press release; the Maharashtra tribal research institute's reports also describe them so. The ST listings were checked against the 2011 census tables and Wikipedia's compilation of the order; amendments after 2011 were not checked.

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

Enthoven (1922) derives Katkari from Marathi kat, catechu, and karne, to make, 'makers of catechu', the tribe's old occupation, and Kathodi from kath and vadi, cake, 'sellers of catechu cakes'; Kathodia is the Gujarati form. The Katkari told him they were descended from the monkeys Rama led against Ravana, whom Rama blessed and made human after his victory. Enthoven noted Bhil words in their speech and a tradition that they came from the north and had first settled in the Athavisi, the Surat district, where one of their divisions takes its name.

History

Enthoven (1922) counted 75,710 Katkaris in 1901, in the Western Ghats of Thana and Kolaba, in the states east of Surat and along the Sahyadris between the Poona and Nasik roads. He describes them as moving their settlements at will in search of hunting or tillage, and abandoning a hamlet after an epidemic. In later years the Maharashtra tribal research institute counted them among the particularly vulnerable tribal groups of the state, and a study it funded of Katkari hamlets in Mulshi taluka of Pune records livelihoods from daily wage labour and seasonal fishing, and notes that the community lives chiefly in Mulshi, Raigad and Thane. Wikipedia's account, drawing on later studies, records that catechu making declined after independence when the Forest Department banned the felling of khair, that restrictions on shifting cultivation followed, and that from the 1950s many Katkari families moved from the hills to the edges of villages on the plains of Raigad and Thane. Under British rule the Katkari were among the communities notified under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, a law repealed after independence.

Faith and Worship

Enthoven (1922) found the tiger-god the chief object of Katkari worship, set up in the forest or at the village boundary; the tiger was thought to favour the Katkari, who were unwilling to shoot it. Worship was also paid to the village god, gamdev, and to lesser gods such as Hirva and Jarimari, with offerings of red lead, coconuts and fowls; in Gujarat Bhildev was worshipped. Spirits of the dead, called Cheda, were sometimes kept in Dhor Katkari houses. The Dhor kept Shimga (Holi) and Diwali as holidays, and the Son also the fifteenth of Bhadrapad, for the dead.

Deities named in the sources: Hirva, Jarimari

Customs

In Enthoven's account (1922) the boy's father pays a bride-price, dej, and weddings are held in Margashirsha, Magha, Vaishakh or Shimga. The groom's party stays at the house of the bride's headman, five girls pour water over the couple, the groom ties a necklace of black beads on the bride, and the pair feed each other balls of rice. At the groom's house his sister bars the door until the couple promise their future daughter to her son. Widows may remarry and divorce, dava, was allowed with the headman's consent.

Festivals