Gazetteer of the Lahore District

· 1894 · Public domain (published pre-1930) · archive.org ↗

1Chapter III. B.

2Social.

3[ Punjab Gazetteer,

464° CHAP. I/l.--THE PEOPLE.

5this first the males partake and after them the females, who then

6clean the cooking utensils and tidy up the house. The men

7having eaten their food go off to their day’s work, The women

8Daily oceupations. pursue their industries, the most common of which is the

9Games.

10Native Am Use:

11mente.

12spinning wheel (charkha). Both cotton and wool are spon, but

13as the European made cloth can be had more cheaply than

14home made, the spinning of cotton is on the decline and 1s

15being replaced by more profitable cecupations, such as silk

16embroidery or what is generally known as phulkari making. —

17Sheets of home made cotton cloth, thaddar painai, &e., dyed with

18najith or maddera, are worked in various colours, the embroidery

19taking the shape of flowers, creepers, ce. The silk work 1s some-

20times studded with small pee of glass. These phulkaris

21are worn by married girls and a mumber of them form part of

22the wedding gilts by girls’ parents. They also find extensive

23sale in the hands of Europeans who make curtains and wall

24hangings of them, but phulkdris made in the city of Lahore

25are principally intended for home use. Some women employ

26their time in making gloves, collars, socks, or in making dresses

27for the members of the household, but their number is com-

28paratively small and is perhaps confined to the girls trained in

29the newly established Girls’ Schools.

30Young women living in one mahdlla or alley often form

31tinjan (pazty) and work together till very late hours in the might.

32Over their work they amuse themselves by singing songs m

33memory of their brothers and sisters whom they left behind

34under the parental roof when they married.

35In the evening the young wife again prepares the second

36meal for the family, which is eaten at 8 or 9 0’clock in the

37evering, the males here also eating first and the females after

38them.

39Native games and sports were exceedingly numerous, but

40now are gradually being superseded by those of European

41introduction, such as cricket, tennis, football and gymnastic

42exercises, to all of which the natives of India take readily and

43show in them remarkable skill, Cricket is the most generally

44popolar; and may now almost be considered as much a national

45pastime of the present generation in India as it is in England.

46In the afternoons every playing ground is covered with boys and

47grown men playing cricket; young boys play at all times in

48every open space available, sometimes even in the basdre and

49roads, with bata and wickets and balls of much the same rough

50and ready material as village boys are seen using in England.

51Of native amusements, the following'mention may prove in-

52teresting. Dolls, or as they call them gudian patola,are the

53amusements of young girls in Lahore as they are in England ;

54but even here the advanced precocity of the native character

55breaks ont, the doll play generally taking the form of marriages

56between male and female dolls, guda and gudi. All the proper

57ceremonies are gone through by the youthful grown ups even