Bengal.
The common way for illiterates to sign is to wet the tip of one finger with ink from a pen, and then touch the document (leaving a small black blot) where we touch a wafer. The mark so made is called 'tep-sai', 'tep' meaning 'pressure' by touch or grip, and 'sai' meaning 'token' (I do not know the etymology). I ask my readers now to compare the 'tep-sai' with the 'finger-print' alongside it, and to say whether the tep-sai could afford any means of identification by comparison with another blot from the same finger. Illiterates who can hold a pen make a cross, as we do, called 'dhera-sai'; others, more ambitious, indicate their caste by symbols. For the interest of the thing I give some tracings from a collection of such caste-marks which I had made for this purpose when I was Magistrate of Midnapore in 1865.
The token-signatures of those who cannot write or read, in several Castes. Year 1865. Date 8 February.
1. Cultivator; a harrow. 2. Barber; a mirror. 3. Shop-keeper; scales. 4. Carpenter; a chisel. 5. A Washerman's board. 6. Female; a bracelet. 7. Widow; a spindle. 8. Caste uncertain; scissors. 9. Family Priest; an almanac roll.
When I was introducing actual registration I asked the principal member of my Bar to give me his opinion about the new marks. His answer was as follows (the English is of course his own):
Hooghly,
The 21st Aug./77.
Dear Sir,
I have examined the impressions made in these papers, and I think each can be distinguished from the others. There are also so many peculiarities in each impression that it cannot be forged, and I think it would be a preventive to forgery if all documents, specially by females, or males who do not know to read or write, would contain impressions by fingers.