6. Occupation.
The trade of the Basors is a very essential one to the agricultural community. They make numerous kinds of baskets, among which may be mentioned the chunka, a very small one, the tokni, a basket of middle size, and the tokna, a very large one. The dauri is a special basket with a lining of matting for washing rice in a stream. The jhānpi is a round basket with a cover for holding clothes; the tipanna a small one in which girls keep dolls; and the bilahra a still smaller one for holding betel-leaf. Other articles made from bamboo-bark are the chalni or sieve, the khunkhuna or rattle, the bānsuri or wooden flute, the bijna or fan, and the sūpa or winnowing-fan. All grain is cleaned with the help of the sūpa both on the threshing-floor and in the house before consumption, and a child is always laid in one as soon as it is born. In towns the Basors make the bamboo matting which is so much used. The only implement they employ is the bānka, a heavy curved knife, with which all the above articles are made. The bānka is duly worshipped at the Diwāli festival. The Basors are also the village musicians, and a band of three or four of them play at weddings and on other festive occasions. Some of them work as pig-breeders and others are village watchmen. The women often act as midwives. One subcaste, the Dumār, will do scavenger’s work, but they never take employment as saises, because the touch of horse-dung is considered as a pollution, entailing temporary excommunication from caste.
[1] Compiled from papers by Mr. Rām Lāl, B. A., Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor; Mr. Vishnu Gangādhar Gādgil, Tahsīldār, Narsinghpur; Mr. Devi Dayal, Tahsīldār, Hatta; Mr. Kanhya Lāl, B. A., Deputy Inspector of Schools, Betūl; Mr. Keshava Rao, Headmaster, Middle School, Seoni; and Bapu Gulāb Singh, Superintendent, Land Records, Betūl.
[2] Chapter x. 37, and Shūdra Kamlākar, p. 284.
[3] A Vaideha was the child of a Vaishya father and a Brāhman mother.