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[edit] Chikan-doz

An embroiderer of flowered muslin, who usually works for a Chikanwala..

They are Muhammadan embroiderers of muslin, who work with gold, or silver, thread (Kalabattun), as well as with cotton and silk, and make the beautifully ornamented caps worn by rich Mussulmans. The Chikan-doz is usually a workman, but a few, having saved money, are wholesale dealers.

Not having the same scruples as the Rafugar about instructing their daughters' children, they freely teach all desirous of learning the art. Ustagar is the polite term by which to address a member of this class. Ustagarni is the title of the female, not necessarily the wife of an embroiderer, who gives out kashida cloth to be worked in private houses, there being few Muhammadan families of respectability the females of which do not spend much of their leisure in embroidering handkerchiefs for export to Arabia and the Persian Gulf.1

1 "A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindostan," vol. i, 186.

[edit] Notes