The Katkari were at one time a forest people living in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, with a special relationship to forest creatures such as the tiger or ‘waghmare', (wagh = tiger, mare = slayer; so tiger slayer) a common Katkari surname. The name Katkari is derived from a forest-based activity - the making and sale of catechu (katha) from the khair tree (Acacia catechu). Weling (1934, 2), drawing on census data from 1901, notes that the Katkari were ‘thickly scattered' in small communities throughout the hill ranges and forests of Raigad and Thane districts in the present day state of Maharashtra. Some also lived in hill areas in the southern part of the current state of Gujarat, and in the forests of what are now Nashik, Pune and Dhule districts.