Note 82 — D. (continued 2)

39. From his business and environment the Dom is, of course, regarded by all respectable Hindus with contempt, fear, and abhorrence. No one will touch food or water from his hands. The Magahiya Dom of Gorakhpur will eat anything except the flesh of the monkey, serpent, and lizard. Mr. Kennedy says that they eat most things, including carrion; but certain animals, beasts of prey, cats, and dogs, etc., they will not eat. In Mirzapur I have seen them squabbling over the carcass of a dead horse in an obvious condition of advanced decomposition. They are always on the look out for tiger flesh, but they say that they stew it down more than once, as it is very heating. They will, as already stated, refuse the leavings of a Dhobi, and to this the more settled Doms of Mirzapur add those of the Hela, Musahar, and Chamâr. Doms who have adopted more cleanly occupations than their vagrant and scavenger brethren, such as basket-making, are naturally becoming more Hinduised and more careful in matters of diet. Those Doms who have settled down, like the Bânsphor and the Dharkâr, to working in cane, and the Jallâd to scavenging and acting as public executioners, are fairly respectable, industrious people. Those who work in cane use a peculiar curved knife known as bânki. They make fans (bena), baskets (dauri), boxes (petâra), scales (tarâzu), winnowing fans (sûp), lampstands (dîwat), irrigation baskets (dala), and betel boxes (belhara). These workers in cane are known in cities by the Persian title of Bedbâf82 (Pers. bed, “cane;” bâftan, “to weave”). They split the cane into eight strips (târ), with an instrument (taraunthi) like a lemon-slicer. The outside cuttings he sells to bakers for making the mould (sâncha) used for applying cakes to the walls of the ovens. The Bedbâf weaves the backs and seats of chairs and makes baskets, etc. The Bânsphor makes baskets, but works only in bamboo. He splits the bamboo into strips (patta), which are soaked and woven into baskets. The allied people known as Kori Chhapparband make door-screens (chiq, tatti) and thatches (chhappar). They work in bamboos and the reed grass known as sentha (saccharum sara). The Parchhatti and Gudariya make stools (mondha), and the Dharkâr fine furniture, fine door-screens, baskets, fans, etc., from bamboo, but he works in bamboo and they in reed.