Another method is to stretch a long rope or cord across the river, secured on either bank, with baited hooks attached to it at short intervals. It is left for some hours and then drawn in. When the river is shallow one wide-bottomed boat will be paddled up the stream and a line of men will wade on each side beating the water with bamboos so as to make the small fish jump into the boat. Or they put a little cotton-seed on a stone in shallow water, and when the fish collect to eat the seed a long circular net weighted with pieces of iron is let down over the stone. Then the upper end is drawn tight and the fishermen put their hands inside and seize the little fish. The Dhīmar is also regularly employed as a worker on ferries. His primitive boat made from the hollowed trunk of a tree and sometimes lashed in couples for greater stability may still be seen on all rivers. He makes his own fishing-nets, knitting them on a stick at his leisure while he is walking along or sitting down to smoke and talk. He worships his fishing-nets at the Diwāli festival, and his reverence for the knitted thread is such that he will not touch or wear a shoe made of thread, because he thinks that the sacred article is debased by being sewn into leather. When engaged in road-work the Dhīmars have unsewn sandals secured to the feet with strips of leather. It is a special degradation to a Dhīmar to be struck with a shoe. He has a monopoly of growing singāra[9] or water-nuts in tanks. The fruit of this plant has a taste somewhat between a cocoanut and a potato, with a flavour of soap. It can be taken raw and is therefore a favourite comestible for fast days when cooked food is forbidden. It is also sold at railway stations and the fresh fruit is prescribed by village doctors as easy of digestion. The Dhīmar grows melons, cucumbers and other vegetables on the sandy stretches along the banks of streams, but at agriculture proper he does not excel.
9. Water-carrier.
The Dhīmar’s connection with water has led to his becoming the water-carrier for Hindus, or that section of the community which can afford to employ one. This is more especially the case in the Hindustāni Districts where women are frequently secluded and therefore cannot draw water for the household, while in the Marātha Districts where the women go to the well no water-bearer is required. In this capacity the Dhīmar is usually the personal servant of the village proprietor, but in large villages every house has a ghinochi, either an earthen platform or wooden stand just outside the house, on which four or five earthen water-pots are kept. These the Dhīmar fills up morning and evening and receives two or three annas or pence a month for doing so. He also brings water for Government servants when they come to the village, and cleans their cooking-vessels and prepares the hearth with fresh cowdung and water in order to cleanse it.
If he cleans the mālguzār’s vessels he gets his food for doing so. When the tenants have marriages he performs the same duties for the whole wedding party and receives a present of one or two rupees and some clothes if the families are well off, and also his food every day while the marriage is in progress. In his capacity of waterman the title Baraua is used to him as an honorific method of address; and to his wife Baroni. In a hot country like India water is revered as the source of relief, comfort and life itself, like fire in cold countries, and the waterman participates in the regard paid to his element.
Another business of the Dhīmar’s is to take sweet potatoes and boiled plums to the fields at harvest-time and sell them. He supplies water for drinking to the reapers and receives three sheaves a day in payment. On the fifteenth of Jesth (May) the Dhīmar goes round to the cultivators, throwing his fishing-net over their heads and receives a small present.
10. Palanquin-bearer and personal servant.
At the period prior to the introduction of wheeled transport when palanquins or litters were largely used for travelling, the carriers belonged to the Kahār caste in northern India and to the Dhīmars or Bhois in the south. Though litters are now practically not used for travelling except occasionally by high-caste women, a survival of the old custom is retained in the marriage ceremony, the bride and bridegroom being always carried back from the marriage-shed to the temporary lodging of the bridegroom in a pālki, though for the longer journey to the bridegroom’s village some less cumbrous conveyance is utilised. Four Dhīmars carry the pālki and receive Rs. 1–4. Well-to-do people will be carried in procession round the town. When employed by the village proprietor the Dhīmar accompanies him on his journey, carrying his cooking-vessels and other necessaries in a banhgi or wooden cross-bar slung across the shoulders, from which two baskets are suspended by loops of rope. Water he will always carry in a banhgi and never on his head or shoulders. From waterman and litter-carrier the Dhīmar has become a personal servant; it is he to whom the term ‘bearer’ as designating a body-servant was first applied because he bears or carries his master in a pālki and his clothes in a banhgi. He is commonly so employed in native houses, but rarely by Europeans, whether because he is too stupid or on account of caste objections of his own. When employed as a cook the Dhīmar or his wife is permitted to knead flour with water and make it into a cake which the Brāhman will then take and put on to the girdle with his own hands. He can also boil water and pour pulse into the cooking-pot from above so long as he does not touch the vessel after the food has been placed in it. He or she will also take any remains of food which is left in the cooking-pot as this is not considered to be polluted, food only becoming polluted when the hand touches it on the dish after having touched the mouth. When this has happened all the food on the dish becomes jūtha or leavings of food, and as a general rule no caste except the sweepers will eat the leavings of food of another caste or of another person of their own. Only the wife, whose meal follows her husband’s, will eat his leavings. As a servant the Dhīmar is very familiar with his master; he may enter any part of the house, including the cooking-place and the women’s rooms, and he addresses his mistress as ‘Mother.’ In northern India Mr. Crooke states that the Kahārs are sometimes known as Mahra, from the Sanskrit Mahila, a woman, because they have the entry of the female apartments. When he lights his master’s pipe he takes the first pull himself to show that it has not been tampered with, and then presents it to him with his left hand placed under his right elbow in token of respect. Maid-servants also frequently belong to the Dhīmar caste, and it often happens that the master of the household has illicit intercourse with them. Hence there is a proverb, ‘The king’s son draws water and the water-bearer’s son sits on the throne,’ similar intrigues on the part of high-born women with their servants being not unknown. The Dhīmar often acts as a pimp, this being an incident of his profession of indoor servant.
11. Other occupations.
Another occupation of the Dhīmar’s is to sell parched grain and rice to travellers in markets and railway stations like the Bharbhūnja and Dhuri. This he can do because of his comparative social purity, as all castes will take water and cakes and sweetmeats from his hands. Some Dhīmars and Kewats also weave hemp-matting and gunny-bags, but such members of the caste rank lower than the others and Brāhmans will not take water from them. Another calling by which a few Dhīmars find support is that of breeding pigs. One would think it a difficult matter to make a living out of the village pig, an animal abhorred by both Hindus and Muhammadans as the most unclean of the brute creation, and equally abjured by Europeans as unfit for food. But the pig is in considerable demand by the forest tribes for sacrifice to their deities. The Dhīmar participates in the sacrifice to Nārāyan Deo described in the article on Mahār, when a pig is eaten in concert by several of the lower castes. Lastly, the business of rearing the cocoons of the tasar silk-worm is usually in the hands of Dhīmars and Kewats. While the caterpillars are feeding on leaves and spinning their cocoons these men live in the forests for two months together and watch the kosa-bāris or silk-gardens, that is the blocks of trees which are set apart for the purpose of rearing the caterpillars. During this period they eat only once a day, abstain from meat and lentils, do not get shaved and do not visit their wives. When the eggs of the caterpillars are to be placed on the trees they tie a silk thread round the first tree to be used and worship it as Pāt Deo or the god of silk thread. On this subject Mr. Ball writes:[10] “The trees which it is intended to stock are carefully pollarded before the rains, and in early spring the leaves are stocked with young caterpillars which have been hatched in the houses. The men in charge erect wigwams and remain on the spot, isolated from their families, who regard them for the time being as unclean. During the daytime they have full occupation in guarding the large green caterpillars from the attacks of kites and other birds. The cocoons are collected soon after they are spun and boiled in a lye of wood-ash, and the extracted chrysalids must then be eaten by the caretakers, who have to undergo certain ceremonial rites before they are readmitted into the society of their fellows. The effect of the boiling in the lye is the removal of the glutinous matter, which renders it possible to wind off the silk.” The eating of the caterpillars is no doubt a ceremonial observance like that of the crocodile at weddings. They are killed by the boiling of the cocoons and on this account members of good castes will not engage in the business of rearing them. The abstention from conjugal intimacy while engaged in some important business is a very common phenomenon.