The Chamārs

Front matter

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF INDIA

EDITED BY

J. N. FARQUHAR, M.A., D.Litt.

Contents

CHAP . PAGE

Author’s Preface . . . . . . . . 7

II. Social and Economic Life .. .. .. 35

Chapter I

The tanners of leather, the preparers of skins, the manufacturers of leather articles, and the makers of shoes belong to a well defined class in the Indian social order. Most of these workers, in Upper India, are to-day included under the general term Chamar. This occupational group may be traced back to very early times. Tanners ( char - mamna) are mentioned in the Rig Veda,1 in the later Vedic literature,2 3 and in the Brahmanas.8 * Tanning, mla, mna, is also spoken of in the Rig Veda,4 and certain details of stretchin *g5 and wetting0 hides probably refer to the process of manufacture. Ox-hides were used in the pressing of the soma,7 and ox-hides8 and antelope0 and tiger skins10 were used in sacramental and ceremonial rites. The use of skins for clothing is mentioned in the Satapatha

3 Tait. Br. III. 4, 13, 1; Ait. Br. V. 32, Carmanya (leather work ) .

9 A. V. XII. 3. Sat.Br. VII. 3. 2. 1-4. Gobhila Grh. S II.

Brahmana1 and in other early literature.2 The Maruts wore deer skins,8 and the wild ascetics seem to have been clothed in skins.4 The use presupposes the preparation of skins.

The word leather (hide) charman, charma, is known in both the older and the later portions of the Rig Veda,8 in the Atharva Veda,6 in the books of the Yajur Vedic schools,7 in the Brahmanas,8 and in the later literature.9 In these books we find references to the thong, yoktra,10 used for yoking the chariot or cart ; the bow-string, jya, made of ox-hide11 ; reins of leather ; leather bags,12 driti and dhmata , for holding liquids; leather bottles,13 bhastra; and thongs used for couches, vardhra ,14 for door fastenings, paricarmanya,16 and for bridles, syuman .ia From the Mahabharat17 we learn that leather was used for the handguard for the bow ; that the hands and fingers were protected with leather ; that the soldier used a shield made of ox-hide or of bear-skin : that he had a cuirass and a

3 Vasish. XI. 61-63 ; Apa. I. 1. 2. 40 ; I. 1. 3. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 ; Baud. I. 6. 13. 13; Guat. I. 16; ManuXI. 109 ; Inst, of Vishnu, XXVII. 20 (antelope, tiger, and he-goat.)

11 R. V. VI. 75. 3 ; A. V. I. 1. 3. There are many passages.

™ Kaush. Br. VI 12; Sank. Ar. II. 1.

18 R. V. III. 61. 4. See also Manu VIII. 292.

•» “ The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic.” Hopkins in J. A. O. S. Vol. XIII. See especially section IV.

breast-plate of leather; and that his body-armour was made of iron and leather. We find also that sinews were used to bind the feathers upon the arrow, and that the sword was sheathed in leather. The war chariot was protected with shields of leather. The box of the chariot was fixed to the axle with thongs of leather. The horses were yoked to the pole of the chariot with leather straps. The reins were of leather. Sometimes the horses were even covered with leather robes which served as armour. Drums, especially the great kettle-drums, were fashioned with leather heads.

The old literature also knows the shoemaker, carmakara, charmakrit, padukara, padukrit. Shoes made of skins and of leather, are mentioned in the Brahmanas,1 in Manu2 * and the older law books,8 in the Mahabharat,4 in the Ramayana,5 and in the Vishnu Purana.6

Thus there were well known and fully developed in ancient India, the occupations of tanner and leather worker.

Probably from early Aryan times the village life in India was organized somewhat as it is to-day, with its cultivators resident within the village, and the lower orders of labourers attached to its outskirts.7 To this latter class belonged the common labourers and those who, on account of the disgusting aspects of their work and life, were deemed to be unclean and untouchable. The Aryan came as a conqueror, and he retained for himself the religious and the military functions of the social order, along with the privileges belonging to the leisured class.

1 6at. Br. V. 4. 3. 19 (made of boar’s skin) .

' IV. 66, 74. Commentator says, “ Colloquially, jutd, leather shoe.” See R&jarldhakantdeva’s Sabdkalpadruma (Lexicon) under pddukd, Vol. II. p. 111.

4 E.g., II. 1915. III. 16593; XIII. 4642. See Monier-Williams, Sanskrit Dictionary , under ” updndh ” and ” pddukd. ”

8 Pddukd, jutd, leather shoe. Ayodhyakanda, 112. 29.

’ See Baden-Powell, The Origin and Growth of Village Communities in India, p. 9, note 1. He says that low-caste menials of

northern villages are not part of the village community. The village community consists of invaders and colonists, the landlords of the village area. See also note 1, next page.

So, as time went on, he became, more and more, the priest and noble, the great landed proprietor and the ranchman. The conquered people, kept in subjection, performed the more lowly tasks of life. According to Hopkins,1 the VaiSya (the people-caste) and the Siidra (the serving-caste) formed the strata between the ruling and priestly castes on the one hand and the helots (the most depressed classes, the outcastes, the Dasyu) on the other. A casual reading of the law books reveals the fact that a fairly sharp line of distinction was drawn between the general community in the village and the helots, who lived beyond the village border.2 Manu’s famous passage is: “All those tribes in this world, which are excluded from (the community of) those born from the mouth, the arms, the thighs, and the feet (of Brahman), are called Dasyus, whether they speak the language of the Mlecchas (barbarians) or that of the Aryas.”3 This excluded group was composed of mixed castes and of aborigines. Some such general term as Chandala was applied to those who were of polluted Aryan blood, and that of Dasyu (slave, native) to those whom the Aryas had conquered. Sometimes these two words are used as synonyms.4 The Dasyu was looked upon as inferior and unclean even in Vedic times.5

1 Essay on Caste.

8 There are many passages pointing to_ this :

(a) Showing different from Sudra : Apas. 1. 3. 9. 9, 15 ; II. 4. 9. 5 ; Baud. I. 5. 9. 7 ; I. 5. 11. 36 ; II. 1. 2. 18 ; II. 2. 3, 40-42 ; Inst. Vishnu III. 32 ; V. 10, VIII. 2 ; XVI ; XXXV. 3 ; LI. 11, Gaut. II. 35, “ all castes excepting . . . and outcastes.” IV. 27, 28 ; XIV. 30; XV. 24; XXIII. 32. Vasish. XI. 9; XIII. 51 ; XIV. 2; XV. 13, 17 ; XVIII. 18 ; XX. 17 ; XXIII. 33, 34 ; Manu III. 239 ; IV. 79 ; IV. 213 ; VIII. 66, 68 ; XI. 224. Inst. Vishnu XVI.7-14. “ ClandcLlas must live out of the town . . .” LVII. 4; LVII. 14. LI. 57; LXXXI. 16, 17. Baudh. II. 3. 6. 22.

(b) Showing that they belong outside the village:

Manu X. 51, “ but the dwellings of Chandalas and Svapachas shall be outside the village ” ; Inst, of Vishnu XLIV. 9, calling them untouchable; Inst. Vishnu LIV. 15, ‘‘of Chandalas and of other low castes that dwell outside the village” ; Manu, X. 39, showing that some were excluded from Aryan society.

5 Baines, On Certain Features of Social Differentiation in India. J. R. A. S. 1894, Art. XIX. p.664.

Karavara

NiSada 4 * Father.

Vaidehi 6 Mother.

He was never admitted to the Aryan community.1 Yet these classes had a sort of landed right, and they were useful in times of disease. Acquainted with primitive superstitions, and in many instances being the officiants in magical rites, in exorcism, and in disease transference, they served, in these capacities, even the higher castes.2 With this community on the outskirts of the village the tanner and leather-worker were grouped.

Occupationally to-day the Chamar corresponds to the charmamna or charmamla and the charmakara of the past.

Some Brahmanical tradition gives the Chamar a respectable ancestry and attributes his out-caste condition to the violation of Aryan laws. According to Manu,3 the Karavara, or leather-worker, has the following ancestry.

f Brahman father.

ISudrl mother.

(Vaisya father.

1 Brahmanl mother.

Other reports give him a less respectable pedigree, for he is said also to be the offspring of a Chandal woman (one of the most despised of society,® having a Brahman! mother and a Sudra father) by a man of the fisherman caste.7 And, again, he is said to be the son of a Mallah (boatman) and a Chandal.8 But evidently none of these traditions account for the Chamar. At most they claim for him a higher birth than seems at all probable.

Much current tradition ascribes to him a good ancestry. For example, men say that, in the beginning, there was but one family of men and they were all of the highest caste. They worked in the fields, and followed other callings. In this family there were four brothers. It so happened that a cow died one day, and the body lay in the yard until evening. Since no one could be found to remove the carcass, the three older brothers agreed that their younger brother should carry away the body, and

5 Manu X. 17. 6 Manu X. 16.

’ Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces

and Oudh, Vol. II. p. 169.

8 Elliot Memoirs, North-Western Provinces of India, Vol. I. p. 70.

that, afterwards, when he had bathed, they would receive him on the old footing of equality. To this he agreed. After much pulling and hauling, he managed to drag the carcass to the jungle. When he returned from his bath, his brothers refused to receive him, but compelled him to live at a distance from them. He made a great fuss about it, but his complaints were of no avail. They told him that henceforth he was to do the work of a Chamar, that is, to skin the animals that died, and to make leather and implements of leather. The brothers promised to take care of him in return for these services. Thus the Chamar caste arose. It happened on another day that a buffalo died. This Chamar then said to his brothers, “I am not strong enough to remove this carcass.” The body lay in the yard until noon, when it so happened that Siva, who had come down to look after the welfare of men, passed that way. The three brothers complained to him that the Chamar was unable to remove the body of the buffalo. Then the latter appealed to Siva for help. The great god then said to the brothers, ‘‘It is true that your brother cannot, unassisted, remove the carcass. Let one of you step forward and help him.” The brothers all protested. Siva, then commanded the Chamar to collect a pile of refuse ( kura .) When this was done, Siva directed him to urinate upon it, and, as he obeyed, straightway, from the heap, a strong man arose. From this man the Kuril sub-caste of Chamars sprang.

Another legend, current among the Agarwala Baniyas, relates that there was once a Raja who had two daughters, Chamu and Bamu, each of whom had a son of great physical powers. One day an elephant died in the Raja’s grounds, and, as he did not wish to cut its body to pieces, he inquired if there was anyone strong enough to carry the carcass away and bury it. Chamu’s son performed the task, whereupon Bamu’s son declared him an out-caste.1

1 Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Vol. II. p. 170. For other forms of the same legend see Rose, A Glossary of Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, Vol. II. p. 148. See also Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Vol. I. p. 22.

According to a third legend, five brothers, Brahmans, while out walking one day, saw the carcass of a cow by the roadside. Four of the brothers passed it by, but the fifth removed the body. Thereupon he was excommunicated by his brothers. His descendants continue to remove the carcasses of cattle.1

These traditions, both ancient and modern, do not, however, account for the origin of the Chamar. They merely show how some persons were degraded into the leather-working group. The caste itself had its origin in that occupational class on the borders of the ancient village. This group, essentially non-Aryan, has maintained itself through the centuries in its traditional occupation. But the caste is to-day a very large one, and it would be difficult to account for it merely on the ground that it has been self-propagating. As now constituted, the caste is made up of a heterogeneous group of peoples. This is illustrated, in the first place, by the fact that most of the sub-castes of the Chamars are found in fairly well defined areas, and these may be described as local groups. Furthermore, some sub-caste names, such as Azamgarhiya Banatidhiya, Kalkattiya, Ujjaini, Saksena, Chandariya, Guliya, Aharwar, and Jhusiya, are specifically local; while other sub-caste names, such as, Gangapari, Purabiya, Uttaraha, and Dakkhinaha, point to definite geographical origins. Some of the local groups of Chamars are of recent origin. For example, there were no Chamars in the Gorakhpur District four hundred years ago.2

Furthermore, there are good reasons for believing that the caste has received large recruitments from above. This is illustrated by the case of the Gorakhpur Chamars.3 Again, there are some rather pronounced variations in the features of members of the caste. This may be illustrated from places as widely separated as Ballia and Meerut. It has been noted that many Chamar women have fine features, and that some Chamars have a better cast of features

1 Crooke, Tribes and Cast&s of the North-Western Provinces and

Oudh, Vol. II. p. 170.

* Gorakhpur District Gazetteer, 1909, p. 94. 3 Ibid. p. 94.

than is at all common in the social level in which they are found. This may be explained in part by illicit relations which Chamar women have had with men of higher castes; and partly by certain social and religious customs that have prevailed extensively, although now traces of the practices are somewhat difficult to discover.1 But such explanations are not sufficient to account for widespread characteristics of the higher sort. The Jatiya, for example, is of a higher physical type than some other sub-castes and of lighter complexion. The explanation in his case may be that some occupational demand drew Jats into this lower form of work ; or, more likely, that some pressure or penalty resulted in their degradation. Some Jatiyas claim to be descendants of Jats, and many of this sub-caste do resemble these taller and fairer complexioned neighbors. Such sections of the caste as possess markedly superior features must be accounted for through conquest. The subjugation of tribe after tribe has been a recurring phenomenon in India. These movements have occurred over wide areas, and over limited portions of the country as well. Local history fully illustrates this fact, and we may picture the flux of rising and falling tribes and clans under repeated foreign and local waves of conquest, and the consequent reconstruction, in more or less detail, of the social distribution of races and clans as a fairly constant process. This means that the fixed status of an occupational group may go hand in hand with the repeated recruitment of the group by those who have been degraded from better positions. In some instances this may mean that certain clans were unable to maintain their identity and prestige with the changing order, and that consequently they have sunk to lower levels. These contentions are borne out by many got, or family, and sub-caste names ; for example, Banau-. dhiya,Ujjaini,Chandhariya,Sarwariya,Kanaujiya, Chauhan, Chandel , Saksena, Sakarwar, Bhadarauriya, and Bundela. These are names of Rajput clans, and, as applied to the Chamar, suggest dependency. This may mean also more

1 See under Marriage ; also Discussions, Representative Council of Missions of the United Provinces , 1915, p. 7.

or less racial admixture, as in the case of the Jatiya. Sub-caste names such as Kori and Turkiya point also to the wide range of racial elements in the caste.

On the other hand, there have been large accessions to the caste from below. Got and sub-caste names show that many Chamars have sprung from the Dom, the Kanjar, the Habura, the Kol, the Jaiswar,1 and other casteless tribes. This movement of peoples upwards through successive stages is a well-known phenomenon.

The caste, then, has been recruited from numerous sources. Many people and even whole sections of tribes have risen up from the lower levels and entered the caste, and this process is still going on. On the other hand, various political changes have resulted in the subjugation of large groups, who consequently were forced into this lower stratum. Still, the caste is predominantly non-Aryan in character. This is accounted for by the fact that to the basal group, which was of aboriginal origin, large recruitments have been made from below. On the other hand, it may be that environment 2 and food have played a large part in modifying the physical characteristics of those who have been brought into the caste from above. The basal group has always been large enough to assimilate its recruits to its own standards of temper and character. In the Chamar caste, there is a close and historically complete contact with Indian village life running very far back, and to-day it occupies a place in the social and economic order that agrees very well with that held from early times.

Although he does not meet any of the determining tests of Hinduism,3 the Chamar is a Hindu. In the Census Report for 1901, 4 certain castes which fall below the twice-born were grouped as follows : Those from

whose hands Brahmans will take water ; those from whose

1 See Nesfield, A Brief Review of the Caste System of the

North-West Provinces and Oudh, p. 22.

3 See Census, India, 1911, Vol. I. pt. 1. pp. 383, 384.

3 See Census Report, United Provinces, 1911, pp. 121 122. He does not usually call himself a Hindu.

4 See Census Report, United Provinces, 1901, pp. 216 ff.

hands some of the higher castes will take water; those from whom the twice-born cannot take water, but who are not untouchable ; those whose touch defiles, but who do not eat beef ; and those who eat beef and vermin and whose touch defiles. In this last class the Chamar belongs. He occupies an utterly degraded position in the village life, and he is regarded with loathing and disgust by the higher castes. His quarters ( chamrauti , chamarwara ) abound in all kinds of abominable filth. His foul mode of living is proverbial. Except when it is absolutely necessary, a cleanliving Hindu will not visit his part of the village. The author of Hindu Castes and Sects says that the very touch of a Chamar renders it necessary for a good Hindu to bathe with all his clothes on.1 The Chamar’s very name connects him with the carcasses of cattle. Besides, he not only removes the skins from the cattle that have died, but also he eats the flesh. The defilement and degradation resulting from these acts are insurmountable. The fact that the Chamar is habitually associated in thought with these practices may partially explain why the large non-leather-working sections of the caste are still rated as untouchable.

Chamars, including Mochis, are scattered well over the “ Aryo-Dravidian ” tract, and leather-workers, under one name or another, are found in nearly every part of India. Chamars are most numerous in the United Provinces, and in the bordering areas of Bihar on the East and of the Punjab on the north-west. The census figures for 1911, for all India, show the Brahmans as the first caste in point of numbers, and the leather-workers as a whole, or even the Chamar-Chambhar taken alone, as the second. The Rajput is the third caste. This estimate excludes in calculation the Sheikh Mussulmans, who number 32,131,342 and who are evidently not a “caste.” In Bengal the Chamar-Mochi is the sixth caste, the Brahman being the second, and the Kayastha the third ; in Bihar and Orissa the Chamar is the eighth or seventh,

1 P. 267. It may be of interest to know that in Baluch Mochis and Chamars are classed as Jats. See Risley, Peoples of India, p. 121.

according as he is counted alone, or with the Mochi ; in the Central Provinces he is the third caste; in the Central India Agency the second, with the Brahman first; in the Punjab he is the fourth, or the third if the Mochi be counted, while the Jat is the first and the Rajput second ; in Rajaputana he is third, with the Jat first and the Brahman second ; in the United Provinces he is the first caste in point of numbers, with the Brahman second. Another striking fact is that in the United Provinces the Chamars are almost as numerous as the Mussulmans. Furthermore, the Chamar is increasing in numbers. In the United Provinces, during the twenty years ending in 1901, the increase was nearly ten percent. ; and during the last decade, 2.4 per cent. In the last thirty years the increase has been 12.2 per cent.1

The tables2 * * * * * show that the Chamars are scattered fairly evenly over the United Provinces. Numerically they are strongest in the Gorakhpur and Basti Districts ; but, taken in proportion to the rest of the population, they are the largest element in the community in Saharanpur and in the remainder of the Meerut Division. In the Saharanpur District every fifth man is a Chamar, while in the Meerut Division seventeen per cent, of the population are Chamars. Taking the United Provinces as a whole, every eighth man lV a Chamar.

The sub-castes8 of the Chamar are very numerous, 1,156 being returned in 1891. 4 While these returns may not be accurate, and while numerous names are but variable pronunciations and spellings of others, still the number of sub-divisions of Chamars is very large. Like

Chamars are not given. Chamar Sikhs numbered 118,000 in 1911, as over against 260,000 in 1891. The figures are in 1,000’s only. Census Report, United Provinces, 1911, pp. 376-377.

‘ See Appendix A.

8 This section on the sub-castes is based upon the works of Risley,

Sherring, Ibbetson, Crooke, Rose, Russell, and others, and upon

independent investigations.

1 Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North Western Provinces and

Oudh, Vol. II. article “ Chamar.”

many other castes they are said to be divided into seven principal sub-castes. The names of these traditional seven vary in different places and their order of respectability varies also.

Among all the sections of the Chamar of the United Provinces, two great sub-castes predominate. These are the Jatiya and the Jaiswar. The former, which includes more than twenty per cent, of the total Chamar population, is found almost entirely in the north and west of the Provinces, in the Meerut, Agra and Rohilkhand Divisions, being most numerous in Meerut, Agra, Moradabad, and Badaun Districts ; and the latter, numbering about one million persons, are found chiefly in the Allahabad, Benares, Gorakhpur, and Fyzabad Divisions, being most numerous in the Jaunpur, Azamgarh, Mirzapur, and Fyzabad Districts. These two sub-castes make up nearly two-fifths of the whole Chamar population. Both make claims to superior standing ; and the Jatiya can reasonably claim to be the highest of all the sub-castes of the Chamars. Among them there are many who are well-to-do. The Jaiswar makes claims to superiority, and bases them upon his refusal to do certain degrading tasks that usually fall to the lot of the Chamar. Yet, where they are most numerous, they undoubtedly share in all of the degrading work, and practise all the disgusting habits characteristic of the caste.

The Jatiya, or Jatua, is found in large numbers, not only in the central and upper Doab, and in Rohilkhand, but also in the Punjab in the neighbourhood of Delhi and Gurgaon. He is a field-labourer, a cultivator, a dealer in hides, and a maker of shoes. Some of the cultivating sections of this sub-caste do not make leather, and do not allow their women to practise midwifery. Some of the shoemaking sections do not mend shoes. In some places, notably in the Punjab, the Jatiya works in horse and camel hides, and refuses to touch the skins of cattle.1 Some of the dealers in hides are wealthy, and live as comfortably as do high-caste Hindus. About one half of the

1 Rose, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, Vol. II. p. 149.

JATIYA CHAMAR

DHARIYA CHAMAR, ONE OF THE SMALLER GROUPS SO NUMEROUS IN THE LOWER JUMNA VALLEY

CHAMAR CHAMAR NALCHINA CHAMAR sub-caste eat carrion. Some, at least, refuse to eat beef or pork.

Two suggestions have been made as to their origin. Some say that their name is derived from the word jat, meaning a camel-driver; others, that their name connects them with the Jat caste. It is sometimes said that they are descendants from the marriages of Jats with Chamars. Nesfield suggests that they may be an occupational offshoot from the Yadu tribe from which Krishna came. Although the Jatiya of the Punjab works in camel and horse hides, which is an abomination to the Chandar,1 he employs Gaur Brahmans, and is, for this reason, in that part of India, considered the highest sub-caste of Chamars.

The Jaiswar is found almost exclusively in the eastern part of the Provinces. From his ranks many menial servants and house-servants for Europeans are recruited in the towns and cities. Many are grasscuts and grooms ; indeed many of the grooms ( sats ) from Calcutta to Peshawar are Jaiswars of Jaunpur and Azamgarh. Some of this sub-caste are tanners, some of them make shoes, and many are day-labourers. Some Jaiswars were with the troops that fought with Clive at Plassey. It is said that they have a custom which requires that they, because of an oath in the name of the goddess Mai Ram (Kali), carry burdens on their heads but not on their shoulders. They worship the halter as a fetish, and consider it an act of sacrilege to tie up a dog with it, because the dog is unclean. For the most part they eat carrion and pork, but their leading men do not. In some places Jaiswar women practise midwifery.

The details of certain other important sub-castes of the Chamars, as found in the United Provinces, together with supplementary notes bearing on other areas, are given below.2 Of these sub-castes the more important have been chosen in the order of their numerical strength.

1 See page 28.

a These figures have been based upon Crooke’s notes on the Census of 1891. No later data are available. See his Tribes aud Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, table at end of article “ Chamar.”

The numbers in the first eight sub-castes enumerated range from more than 400,000 to just under 100,000.

The Chamar Chamar is found almost exclusively in the Meerut and Rohilkhand Divisions. He is most numerous in the Saharanpur, Bijnor, and Muzaffarnagar Districts, and he is found in considerable numbers in the Meerut, Moradabad, and Bulandshar Districts. He is counted amongst the lowest of all the sub-castes. In fact

the tanning sections of the Chamars, of whom the Chamar is one, seem to occupy the lowest level wherever they are found. He is a cultivator, a shoe-maker, and a tanner. His women practise midwifery. He eats pork.

The Dohar is a numerous group of the Chamars, found in a section running right across the Provinces, from the Districts of Philibhit and Kheri, through those of Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Farrukhabad, Cawnpore, and Etawah, to Jalaun. He is most numerous in the Hardoi District, where he forms more than half of the Chamar population. He does not keep pigs, but he eats pork.

The Kuril is found chiefly in the Allahabad and Lucknow Divisions. He is most numerous in the Unao District where he comprises nearly the whole of the Chamar community. He is found in considerable numbers in the neighbouring Districts of Cawnpore, Lucknow, and Rae Bareilly, and in small numbers in nearly every district in the Provinces, being in this respect, with the exception of the Jaiswar, the most widely distributed sub-caste in the Provinces. He claims to have been brought to Lucknow from Fatehpur Haswa several generations ago. He is a leather-worker and field-labourer. He keeps pigs and eats carrion. He will not touch dead camels or horses. The Kurils who live to the west of the Ganges have no social intercourse with those who live on the other side of that stream. The two sections do not intermarry. The women of the former wear skirts and those of the latter wear loin-cloths (dhoti).

The Purbiya numbers nearly 300,000. The name is geographical. He is found chiefly in the Sitapur and Kheri Districts, being most numerous in the former.

There are fairly large numbers of this sub-caste in the territory lying to the east of these districts. Few are found in the western parts of the Provinces.

The Kori or Koli Chamar is found almost exclusively in the Gorakhpur and Lucknow Divisions. About 100,000 are found in the Sultanpur District alone, while more than 50,000 are found in the District of Basti, and more than 80,000 in the two Districts of Fyzabad and Partabgarh. He is a shoe-maker, a field-labourer, a groom, and a weaver.1 He will not touch dead camels or horses. In the Punjab, where he does not work in leather, and where he does not perform menial tasks, he is called a Chamar-Julaha, i.e., Chamar weaver. The Kori (Weaver) often lives alongside of him, and was undoubtedly formerly a Chamar. In some places people still remember when the Kori and the Kori Chamar ate together and intermarried. In Mirzapur the Kori is known as Chamar-Kori.