7. Occupation
The caste are generally weavers, producing coarse country cloth, and a number of them serve as village watchmen, while others are cultivators and labourers. They will not grow sān-hemp nor breed tasar silk cocoons. They are somewhat poorly esteemed by their neighbours, who say of them, ‘Where a Panka can get a little boiled rice and a pumpkin, he will stay for ever,’ meaning that he is satisfied with this and will not work to get more. Another saying is, ‘The Panka felt brave and thought he would go to war; but he set out to fight a frog and was beaten’; and another, ‘Every man tells one lie a day; but the Ahīr tells sixteen, the Chamār twenty, and the lies of the Panka cannot be counted.’ Such gibes, however, do not really mean much. Owing to the abstinence of the Pankas from flesh and liquor they rank above the Gāndas and other impure castes. In Bilāspur they are generally held to be quiet and industrious.[3] In Chhattīsgarh the Pankas are considered above the average in intelligence and sometimes act as spokesmen for the village people and as advisers to zamīndārs and village proprietors. Some of them become religious mendicants and act as gurus or preceptors to Kabīrpanthis.[4]
[1] This article is compiled from papers by Pyāre Lāl Misra, Ethnographic clerk, and Hazari Lāl, Manager, Court of Wards, Chānda.
[2] The basil plant.
[3] Bilaspur Settlement Report (1868), p. 49.
[4] From a note by Mr. Gauri Shankar, Manager, Court of Wards, Drūg.