1 270 PANJAB CASTES.
2 the memory of the present generation, and it is liardly possible that wliat has
3 so lately happened thrre should not liave earlier happened elsewhere. When
4 a hitherto uninhabited tract is settled liy immigrants of all classes pouring in
5 from all directions, as has been the case with Sirsa during the last fifty years, [T. 307]
6 the conditions are probably especially favourable to social change. People who
7 have hitherto been separated by distance but who have the same caste name or
8 the same occupation, meet together liringing with them tlie varying cusloms
9 and distinctions of the s.'veral neighbourlioods whence they came. They do not
10 as a rule fuse together, but remain distinct sections included under a common
11 caste-name, thousrh often reluctant to atlmit that there is any communitv of
12 origin or even of caste, and refusing to associate or to intermarry with each
13 other. There is a great demand for agricultural labour and the artisan tends
14 to become a cultivator ; old distinctions are sometimes forgotten, and new
15 sections are continually fi)rined. To use technical language, society is more
16 colloid than iu older settled tracts where the process of crystallisation, for
17 which rest and quiet are necesssary, is more advanced ; and diffusion and osmose
18 are correspondingly mere easy and more a.tive. But what is now taking place
19 in Sirsa must have taken place elsewhere at some time or other. Almost all
20 the menial and artisan castes are divided into sections which are separate from
21 each other in custom and status ; and though in many cases these distinctions
22 are probably based upon geographical distribution and consequent variation
23 of customs, yet in other cases they protiably result from the fact that one
24 section has risen and another fallen to its ])rcsent position.
25 569. The higher and hill menials. — The higher menial classes i^resent,
26 so far as I see, no such toutiimity of gradation as we find among the outcasts.
27 The Kumhar or jjotter with liis doukey is perhaps the lowest of them, and
28 may not improbal)ly lielong by origin and affinity to the classes just discussed.
29 The blacksmith, carpenter, and stonemason class form a very distinct group,
30 as also do the washermen and dyers. The oilman and butcher is perhaps
31 lower than any of them, and it appears that he should rank with the weavers,
32 though I do not know that there is at present any connection between the
33 two classes. The goldsmiths seem to stand alone, and to have descended
34 fi-om above into the artisan classes, probably Ijeing by origin akin to the
35 mercantile castes. Among the menials of the hills, on the contrary, the
36 continuity of the whole class now under consideration is almost unbroken.
37 The outcast classes arc indeed separate from the higher artisans in the lower
38 hills ; but as we penetrate further into the Himalayas we find the scavenger
39 class working as carpenters and blacksmiths, and the whole forming one body
40 which it is almost impossible to separate into sections on any other basis than
41 the present calling of the individual.
42 570. The oeconomical divisions of the menial classes. — The second or
43 ceconomical basis upon wiiich these menial and artisan castes may be classified
44 will be dismissed with a very few words. The whole group may be jjroadly
45 divided into three sections, the vagrant classes, the village menials, and the
46 independent artisans. The vagrant classes serve no man and follow no settled
47 calling. The independent artisans work, like the artisans of Europe, by the
48 piece or for daily hire ; and in urban communities, as distinct from the
49 village community which is often found living in a town the lands attached
50 to which they hold and cultivate, include all industrial classes and orders.
51 But in the villages there is a very wide distinction between the village
52 raeuial and the independent artisan. The carpenter, the blacksmith, the