Formerly the Gonds appear in some places to have had seven groups, worshipping different numbers of gods from one to seven, and each of these groups was exogamous.

But after the complete substitution of male for female kinship in the clan, and the settlement of clans in different villages, the classes cease to fulfil any useful purpose.

They are now disappearing, and it is very difficult to obtain any reliable information about their rules.

The system of counting kinship through the mother, or female descent, has long been extinct in the Central Provinces and over most of India.

Some survival of it, or at least the custom of polyandry, is found among the Nairs of southern India and in Thibet.