Taboos. 28. They will not touch a menstrual woman or their younger brother’s wife, or mother-in-law, or a connection through the marriage of children (Samdhin). They will not name their wives or elders in the family or the dead. In the morning they will not speak of death or quarrels or unlucky villages or persons of notorious character. They will not eat the flesh of monkeys, horses, crocodiles, lizards or snakes. [[12]]

Social usages. 29. Children eat first, then the men and women eat together, but in separate vessels. They have no ceremony at eating. They use liquor and chewing tobacco freely; they do not use the huqqa, but smoke out of pipes made of the leaf of the sâl tree. When they cannot get liquor to offer to deceased ancestors they mix flowers of the Mahua (Bassia latifolia) in water. They believe that the use of liquor keeps off sickness, but consider drunkenness disreputable. They salute in the same form as the Mânjhis (q.v.). They will eat food cooked in butter (pakka) from the hands of Kahârs, and boiled rice from Chhatris. There is no caste which will drink water touched by them.

Occupation. 30. They practically do no agriculture. Their business is smelting and forging iron. The following account of the manufacture is given by Dr. Ball[11]:—“The furnaces of the Agariyas are generally erected under some old tamarind or other shady tree on the outskirts of a village, or under sheds in a hamlet where Agariyas alone dwell, and which is situated in convenient proximity to the ore or to the jungle of sâl (Shorea robusta), or bijay sâl (Pterocarpus marsupium), where the charcoal is prepared. The furnaces are built of mud and are about three feet high, tapering from below upwards from a diameter of rather more than two feet at base to eighteen inches at top, with an internal diameter of about six inches, the hearth being somewhat wider. Supposing the Agariya and his family to have collected the charcoal and ore, the latter has to be prepared before being placed in the furnace. The magnetic ores are first broken into small fragments by pounding, and are then reduced to a fine powder between a pair of mill-stones. The hematite ores are not usually subjected to any other preliminary treatment besides pounding. A bed of charcoal having been placed on the hearth, the furnace is filled with charcoal and then fired. The blast is produced by a pair of kettle-drum-like bellows, which consist of basins loosely covered with leather in the centre of which is a valve. Strings attached to these leather covers are connected with a rude form of springs which are simply made by planting bamboos or young trees into the ground in a sloping [[13]]direction. The weight of the operator, or pair of operators, is alternately thrown from one drum to the other, the heels acting at each depression as stoppers to the valves. The blast is conveyed to the furnace by a pair of hollow bamboos, and has to be kept up steadily without intermission for from six to eight hours. From time to time ore and fuel are sprinkled on the top of the fire, and as fusion proceeds the slag is tapped off by a hole pierced a few inches from the top of the hearth. For ten minutes before the conclusion of the process, the bellows are worked with extra vigour, and the supply of ore and fuel from above is stopped. The clay luting of the hearth is then broken down, and the ball (giri) consisting of semi-molten iron slag and charcoal is taken out and immediately hammered, by which a considerable portion of the included slag which is still in a state of fusion is squeezed out. In some cases the Agariyas continue the further process, until after various reheatings in open furnaces and hammerings, they produce clean iron fit for the market, or even at times they work it up themselves into agricultural tools, etc. Not unfrequently, however, the Agariya’s work ceases with the production of the giri which passes into the hands of the Lohârs. Four annas or six-pence is the price paid for an ordinary giri, and as but two of these can be made in a very hard day’s work of fifteen hours’ duration, and a considerable time has also to be expended on the preparation of charcoal and ore, the profits are very small. The fact is that although the actual price which the iron fetches in the market is high, the profits made by the native merchants (Mahâjan) and the immense disproportion between the time and labour expended and the outturn, both combine to leave the unfortunate Agariya in a miserable state of poverty.” Some further enquiries recently made in Mirzapur prove the hopelessness of competition between native and imported iron. The native iron is specially valued for tools, etc., but with the diminution of jungle its manufacture will probably soon disappear.

Agariya: Agari.—There is another set of people known under this name who are found in the Central Ganges-Jumna Duâb who have no connection with the Agariyas of Mirzâpur. They claim to be Chauhân Râjputs, and say that they emigrated to Bulandshahr about two centuries ago from Sambhal in the Morâdâbâd district. They are, as a rule, settled, but in the hot weather they migrate to Rohtak, in the Panjab, where they settle in rude [[14]]huts near villages and pursue their trade of making salt (khâri nimak) and saltpetre. They follow the customs of Râjputs in their marriage ceremonies, except that they levy a bride price from the relations of the bridegroom. They profess not to permit widow marriage, but they recognise the levirate. A wife may be put away for adultery or other misconduct with the sanction of the tribal council, and then she can re-marry by the karâo form. Some of them now live by agriculture. Gûjars, they say, will eat and smoke with them.

2. A caste known as Agari are miners and smelters in the hills: there they are regarded as a branch of the Doms.

3. Of the Agaris of the Panjab Mr. Ibbetson writes:—“The Agari is the salt-maker of Râjputâna and the east and south-east of the Panjab, and takes his name from the Agar or shallow pan in which he evaporates the saline water of the lakes or wells at which he works. The city of Agra derives its name from the same word. The Agaris would appear to be a true caste, and in Gurgâon are said to claim descent from the Râjputs of Chithor. There is a proverb,—“The Ak, the Jawása, the Agari and the cartman: when the lightning flashes these four give up the ghost:” because, I suppose, the rain which is likely to follow would dissolve their salt. The Agaris are all Hindus and are found in the Sultânpur tract on the common borders of the Delhi, Gurgâon and Rohtak districts, where the well water is exceedingly brackish, and where they manufacture salt by evaporation. Their social position is fairly good, being above that of the Lohârs, but, of course, below that of Jâts.”[12]

4. Another name for them in these provinces is Gola Thâkur, or illegitimate Râjput. At the last Census they were included in the Luniyas.

Agarwâla.[13]—Usually treated as a sub-caste of the great Banya caste, a wealthy trading class in Upper India. There are various explanations of the name. According to one account they take their title from dealing in the aromatic wood of the agar (Sans. aguru), the eagle wood tree (Aquilaria agallocha). There is, however, no evidence that the sale of this article is, or ever was, a speciality [[15]]of the Agarwâlas. Another story is that there were a thousand families of Agnihotri Brâhmans settled in Kashmîr, and that they were supplied with agar wood for their sacrifices by a special tribe of Vaisyas. When Alexander the Great invaded India he broke their sacred fire pits (Agni kunda), and these Vaisyas were dispersed and settled in the neighbourhood of Agra, whence they derived their name. A third legend again refers the name to Agroha, an ancient town in the Hissâr district of the Panjab, where a lâkh of families of Vaisyas were settled by King Agra Sena. Round this Râja Agra Sena there is a whole cycle of legend. His ancestor was Dhana Pâla, Râja of Pratâpnagar, which some identify with the present State in Râjputâna, and some place vaguely in the Dakkhin or Southern India. He had eight sons—Shiu, Nala, Anala, Nanda, Kunda, Kumuda, Vallabha, Suka, and a daughter, Mukuta. At that time there was a Râja Visâla, who had eight daughters—Padmâvati, Mâlati, Kanti, Subhadra, Sra, Srua, Basundhara and Râja. They were married to the eight sons of Dhana Pâla. Each of these, except Nala, who became an ascetic, had a kingdom of his own. In the family of Shiu there reigned in succession Vishnu Râja, Sudarsana, Dhurandhara, Samadi, Mohan Dâs and Nema Nâtha, who populated Nepâl and called it after his own name. His son Vrinda performed a great sacrifice at Brindâban, and named the place after himself. His son was Râja Gurjara, who occupied Gujarât. Râja Harihar succeeded him, and he had one hundred sons. One of these, Rangji, became Râja, and the others, for their impiety, were degraded into Sûdras. To him, in the fifth generation, succeeded Râja Agra Sena. At that time, Râja Kumuda of Nâga Loka, or “Dragon land,” had a very beautiful daughter named Mâdhavi, who was wooed by the God Indra; but her father preferred to marry her to Râja Agra Sena. After his marriage he performed notable sacrifices at Benares and Hardwâr, and then went to Kolhâpur where he won the daughter of the Râja Mahidhara in the swayamvara. Finally he settled in the neighbourhood of Delhi and made Agra and Agroha his capitals. His dominions reached from the Himâlaya to the Ganges and the Jumna, and as far as Mârwâr on the west. He had eighteen queens, who bore him fifty-four sons and eighteen daughters. In his latter days he determined to perform a great sacrifice with each of his queens. Each of these sacrifices was in charge of a separate Achârya or officiant priest, and the gotras which sprang from him are named after these Achâryas. When he was performing the last [[16]]sacrifice, he was interrupted, and so there are seventeen full gotras and one half gotra. There are considerable differences in the enumeration of these gotras. One list, which seems authoritative, gives them as follows with the Veda, Sâkha and Sutra, to which they conform:—

Gotra.Veda.Sâkha.Sutra.
1. Garga Yajurveda. Mâdhyandina. Kâtyâyana.
2. Gobhila Yajurveda.,, Mâdhyandina.,, Kâtyâyana.,,
3. Gautama Yajurveda.,, Mâdhyandina.,, Kâtyâyana.,,
4. Maitreya Yajurveda.,, Mâdhyandina.,, Kâtyâyana.,,
5. Jaimini Yajurveda.,, Mâdhyandina.,, Kâtyâyana.,,
6. Saingala Sâmaveda. Kausthami. Gobhila.
7. Vâsala Sâmaveda.,, Kausthami.,, Gobhila.,,
8. Aurana Yajurveda. Mâdhyandina. Kâtyâyana.
9. Kausika Yajurveda.,, Mâdhyandina.,, Kâtyâyana.,,
10. Kasyapa Sâmaveda. Kausthami. Gobhila.
11. Tandeya Yajurveda. Mâdhyandina. Kâtyâyana.
12. Mândavya Rigveda. Sakila. Aswilâin.
13. Vasishtha Yajurveda. Mâdhyandina. Kâtyâyana.
14. Mudgala Rigveda. Sakila. Aswilâin.
15. Dhânyâsha Yajurveda. Mâdhyandina. Kâtyâyana.
16. Dhelana Yajurveda.,, Mâdhyandina.,, Kâtyâyana.,,
Dhauma
17. Taitariya Yajurveda.,, Mâdhyandina.,, Kâtyâyana.,,
17½. Nagendra Sâmaveda. Kausthami. Gobhila.

The lists given by both Mr. Risley and Mr. Sherring differ considerably from this. Mr. Risley gives—