Vagrant, Menial (so-called) and Artisan Castes, Punjab, 1883: II

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore: Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Secondly, this has been scanned from a book. You can help by sending the corrected version to the Facebook page, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be duly acknowledged.

Division of the subject

Having discussed the land-owning and Agricultural and the priestly, mercantile, and professional castes, I now turn to the lowest strata of Paujab society, the vagrant and criminal tribes, the gipsies, the menials,, and the artisans. These classes form in many respects one of the most interesting sections of the community. Politically they are unimportant ; but they include the great mass of such aboriginal element as is still to be found in the Panjab, their customs are not only exceedingly peculiar but also exceedingly interesting as affording us a clue to the separation of the non- Aryan clement in the customs of other tribes, and while the industries of the Province are almost entirely in their hands an immense deal of the hardest part of the field-work is performed by them.

At the same time they are precise ly the classes regarding whom it is most difficult to obtain reliable informa tion. They are not pleasant people to deal with and we are thrown but little into contact with them, while the better class of native groups most of them under one or two generic terms, such as Chuhra, Dum, or Nat, and thinks it would degrade him to show any closer acquaintance with their habits. I have roughly divided these castes into eleven groups. First I have taken the vagrant, hunting, and criminal tribes, then the gipsy tribes, then the scavenger classes, the leather-workers and weavers, the water-carriers, fishermen and boatmen, the carpenters, blacksmiths, stone masons and botters, the goldsmiths and saltinakers, the washermen, dyers, and tailors, the oilmen, butchers, cotton scutchers, wine distillers, and other miscellaneous artisans, the menials peculiar to the hills, and finally the Purbi menials of our cantonments.

These classes may be grouped in two different ways, according as the classification is based upon their ethnic and occupational affinities, or upon their position in the industrial oeconomy of the country. I shall first consider them from the former point of view.