6. Occupation
The traditional occupation of the Pāsis, as already stated, is the extraction of the sap of palm trees. But some of them are hunters and fowlers like the Pārdhis, and like them also they make and mend grindstones, while others are agriculturists; and the caste has also strong criminal propensities, and includes a number of professional thieves. Some are employed in the Nāgpur mills and others have taken small building contracts. Pāsis are generally illiterate and in poor circumstances, and are much addicted to drink. In climbing[6] palm trees to tap them for their juice the worker uses a heel-rope, by which his feet are tied closely together. At the same time he has a stout rope passing round the tree and his body. He leans back against this rope and presses the soles of his feet, thus tied together, against the tree. He then climbs up the tree by a series of hitches or jerks of his back and feet alternately. The juice of the palmyra palm (tār) and the date palm (khajūr) is extracted by the Pāsi. The tār trees, Sir H. Risley states,[7] are tapped from March to May, and the date palm in the cold season. The juice of the former, known as tāri or toddy, is used in the manufacture of bread, and an intoxicating liquor is obtained from it by adding sugar and grains of rice. Hindustāni drunkards often mix dhatūra with the toddy to increase its intoxicating properties. The quantity of juice extracted from one tree varies from five to ten pounds. Date palm tāri is less commonly drunk, being popularly believed to cause rheumatism, but is extensively used in preparing sugar.