9. Industrial arts.
The following account of the industries of the vagrant Kanjars was written by Mr. Nesfield in 1883. In the Central Provinces many of them are now more civilised, and some are employed in Government service. Their women also make and retail string-net purses, balls and other articles.
“Among the arts of the Kanjar are making mats of the sirki reed, baskets of wattled cane, fans of palm-leaves and rattles of plaited straw: these last are now sold to Hindu children as toys, though originally they may have been used by the Kanjars themselves (if we are to trust to the analogy of other backward races) as sacred and mysterious implements. From the stalks of the munj grass and from the roots of the palās[27] tree they make ropes which are sold or bartered to villagers in exchange for grain and milk. They prepare the skins of which drums are made and sell them to Hindu musicians; though, probably, as in the case of the rattle, the drum was originally used by the Kanjars themselves and worshipped as a fetish; for even the Aryan tribes, who are said to have been far more advanced than the indigenous races, sang hymns in honour of the drum or dundubhi as if it were something sacred. They make plates of broad leaves which are ingeniously stitched together by their stalks; and plates of this kind are very widely used by the inferior Indian castes and by confectioners and sellers of sweetmeats. The mats of sirki reed with which they cover their own movable leaf huts are models of neatness and simplicity and many of these are sold to cart-drivers. The toddy or juice of the palm tree, which they extract and ferment by methods of their own and partly for their own use, finds a ready sale among low-caste Hindus in villages and market towns. They are among the chief stone-cutters in Upper India, especially in the manufacture of the grinding-mill which is very widely used. This consists of two circular stones of equal diameter; the upper one, which is the thicker and heavier, revolves on a wooden pivot fixed in the centre of the lower one and is propelled by two women, each holding the same handle. But it is also not less frequent for one woman to grind alone.” It is perhaps not realised what this business of grinding her own grain instead of buying flour means to the Indian woman. She rises before daybreak to commence the work, and it takes her perhaps two or three hours to complete the day’s provision. Grain-grinding for hire is an occupation pursued by poor women. The pisanhāri, as she is called, receives an anna (penny) for grinding 16 lbs. of grain, and can get through 30 lbs. a day. In several localities temples are shown supposed to have been built by some pious pisanhāri from her earnings. “The Kanjars,” Mr. Nesfield continues, “also gather the white wool-like fibre which grows in the pods of the semal or Indian cotton tree and twist it into thread for the use of weavers.[28] In the manufacture of brushes for the cleaning of cotton-yarn the Kanjars enjoy almost a complete monopoly. In these brushes a stiff mass of horsehair is attached to a wooden handle by sinews and strips of hide; and the workmanship is remarkably neat and durable.[29] Another complete or almost complete monopoly enjoyed by Kanjars is the collection and sale of sweet-scented roots of the khas-khas grass, which are afterward made up by the Chhaparbands and others into door-screens, and through being continually watered cool the hot air which passes through them. The roots of this wild grass, which grows in most abundance on the outskirts of forests or near the banks of rivers, are dug out of the earth by an instrument called khunti. This has a handle three feet long, and a blade about a foot long resembling that of a knife. The same implement serves as a dagger or short spear for killing wolves or jackals, as a tool for carving a secret entrance through the clay wall of a villager’s hut in which a burglary is meditated, as a spade or hoe for digging snakes, field-rats, and lizards out of their holes, and edible roots out of the earth, and as a hatchet for chopping wood.”
[1] Criminal Tribes, p. 78.
[2] Criminal Classes.
[3] Berār Census Report (1881), p. 140.
[4] Page 139.
[5] See art. Beria, para. 1.
[6] Ibbetson, Punjab Census Report (1881), para. 527.
[7] Ibidem.
[8] Art. Kanjar, para. 3.
[9] Ibbetson.
[10] Crooke, art. Dom, para. 21.
[11] Lectures, p. 59.
[12] Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarāt, p. 83.
[13] Kennedy, Criminal Tribes of Bombay, p. 257.
[14] Criminal Tribes, p. 46.
[15] Berār Census Report (1881), p. 140.
[16] Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Dom.
[17] Nesfield, l.c. p. 393.
[18] Ind. Ant. xvi. p. 37.
[19] Ind. Ant. xv. p. 15.
[20] In Sir G. Grierson’s account the Bhojpuri version is printed in the Nāgari character; but this cannot be reproduced. It is possible that one or two mistakes have been made in transliteration.
[21] Quoted in Mr. Crooke’s article on Dom.
[22] Gayer, Lectures, p. 59.
[23] Gunthorpe, p. 81. Mr. Kennedy says: “Sānsia and Beria women have a clove (lavang) in the left nostril; the Sānsias, but not the Berias, wear a bullāq or pendant in the fleshy part of the nose.”
[24] Gayer, l.c. p. 61.
[25] Crooke, l.c. para. 3.
[26] In a footnote Mr. Nesfield states: “The Kanjar who communicated these facts said that the child used to open out its neck to the knife as if it desired to be sacrificed to the deity.”
[27] Butea frondosa.
[28] It is not, I think, used for weaving now, but only for stuffing quilts and cushions.
[29] But elsewhere Mr. Nesfield says that the brushes are made from the khas-khas grass, and this is, I think, the case in the Central Provinces.