Servant: Communities Sholapur
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Sevant communities Sholapur
This is an extract from a British Raj gazetteer pertaining to Sholapur that seems |
Servant
Servants include two castes with a strength of 10,254 or 1.9 per cent of the Hindu population. Of these 6169 (males 4179, females 2990) were Nhavis and 4085 (males 2041, females 2044) were Parits.
Nhavis
Nha'vis or Barbers, also called Va'riks or Time-keepers, are returned as numbering 6169 and as found all over the district. They are divided into Maratha, Telangi, Lingayat, Pardeshi, Marwari, and Gujarati Nhavis. The following particulars apply to Maratha Nhavis only, who are divided into Konkanis and Deccanis who eat together but do not intermarry. Their houses are the same as Maratha houses. They eat fish and flesh and drink liquor. They dress like Marathas, the men wearing a waistcloth, coat, jacket, turban or headscarf, and shoes; and the women the Maratha robe and bodice. They are a quiet orderly and obliging people, and amuse their patrons with talk and gossip and sometimes with a song. They are barbers, hold umbrellas over the bride and bridegroom at weddings, play the sanai or pipe and the drums called samel and chaughada, and sing excellent songs. They also bleed and apply leeches, and their women act as midwives. They are husbandmen, messengers, and torch-bearers, and are very popular servants, Their customs are the same as Maratha customs. They worship the goddess Satvai on the fifth day after childbirth, cradle and name the child on the twelfth and marry their girls between ten and fourteen and their boys between fifteen and twenty. The marriage ceremony lasts four days. They allow widow marriage, practise polygamy, worship the ordinary Hindu gods and goddesses, keep the regular fasts and feasts, and employ the local Maratha Brahmans as their priests. They settle social disputes at caste meetings. They give their boys a little schooling and are a steady people.
Partis
Parits, or Washermen, are returned as numbering 4085 and as found in small numbers all over the district. They have no memory of any former home and are divided into Lingayats, Marathas, and Telangis, who neither eat together nor intermarry. The following details apply chiefly to Maratha Parits. Their personal names and surnames are the same as those of Maratha Kunbis and they do not differ from local Kunbis in look, speech, house, dress, or character. Parits generally wear articles of dress which have been sent them to be washed, as the proverb says, The king's headscarf is the washerman's loincloth. [The Marathi runs: Rajache shiri, Paritachi tiri.] They are hereditary washermen, and some of them are landholders and labourers. When they get clothes to wash, Parits examine them closely and mark them with the marking-nut or biba, the marks being generally dots and lines, not letters, as few Parits can read. Thus they can arrange any number of clothes and show remarkable keenness and memory in picking different clothes from the heap and returning them to their owners. They are paid either in cash or in grain, or in cooked food which is their favourite form of payment. In washing their clothes they use saban or soap,papad khar or carbonate of potash and soda, nil or indigo, and kanji or rice starch. Their appliances are metal washing basins called satele or gindi, the istari or iron, and the mograor wooden mallet. Parits are helped by their women and children in collecting clothes, drying them, and returning them to their owners. Parits rise early, take the clothes to the nearest river or running brook, and wash and dry them in the sun. They go home, soak the clothes in soap water, boil them, and again wash them in the river. This they do twice or thrice and dry them, fold and beat them with the mallet or mogra or iron them, and the clothes are ready. Parits belong to the class of balutedars or village servants but many of them are poorly paid. They rank very low in the social scale almost next above the impure classes. Their social and religious customs are the same as those of local Kunbis. Early marriage, polygamy, and widow marriage are allowed and practised and polyandry is unknown. They have a caste council and settle social disputes at caste meetings. A few send their boys to school but their calling is poorly paid and they are badly off.
