Note 112 — B (continued 4)

In a note on the Brāhmans of South Canara, Mr. T. Raghaviah writes as follows112:—“The sentimental objection to manual labour, which is so predominant in the East Coast Brahmin, and the odium attached to it in this country, which has crystallised into the religious belief that, if a Brahmin cultivates with his own hand, the fire of his hand would burn down all that he touches, have entirely disappeared in South Canara. In the rural parts of the district, and especially at the foot of the Western Ghauts, it is an exceedingly common sight to see Brahmins engaging themselves in digging, ploughing or levelling their lands, trimming their water-courses or ledges, raising anicuts across streams, and doing a hundred other items of manual work connected with agriculture. Brahmin women busy themselves with cutting green leaves for manure, making and storing manure and carrying it to their lands or trees, and Brahmin boys are employed in tending and grazing their own cattle. This is so much the case with a class of Brahmins called Havīks that there is a proverb that none but a Havīk can raise an areca garden. You find, as a matter of fact, that nearly all the extensive areca plantations in the district are in the hands of either the Havīk Brahmins or the Chitpāvans allied much to the Mahratta Brahmins of Bombay. These plantations are managed by these Brahmins, and new ones are raised with the aid of a handful of Holeyas, or often without even such aid.”