1 VAGRANT, MENIAL, AND ARTISAN CASTES. 271
2 potter, the scavenger, tbe leather-workei-, the water-camer, and in villages
3 where the women are socluded the washerman, — all classes in fact whose
4 services are required in husliandry or daily domestic life — are paid not by the
5 jobj but by customary dues usually consisting of a fixed share of the produce
6 of the fields ; and the service they are bound to perform is often measured
7 by kind and not by quantity. Thu> the potter has to supply all the earthen
8 vessels, and the leather-worker all the leathern articles that are required by
9 his clients. Those artisans, however, v.hose services are only occasionally
10 required, such as the weaver, the oilman, and the dyer, are paid by the job ;
11 not usually indeed in cash, but either in grain, or hj being allowed to retain
12 a fixed proportion of the raw material which their employers provided for
13 them to work upon. The goldsmith occupies in the village a semi-mercantile
14 position, and is a pawnln'oker as much as an artisan ; while the other crafts
15 are scarcely represented among the rural communities.
16 571. The internal organization of the menial classes.— The elaborate orga-
17 nisation of the menial .Tml artisan classes, whether based upon the tribal organisa-
18 tion of the agricultural communities whom they serve, or following the type of
19 the trades-guilds projx-r of the towns, has already been alluded to in sections 352
20 and 356. The subject is one of which we know little, yet a more acciu-ate
21 knowledge of the details of these two types of organisation could hardly fail to
22 throw much light upon the evolution of caste. Especially would it be in-
23 teresting to trace the points of similarity and of difference between the
24 respective systems where the occupation is hereditary and partakes of the
25 nature of other castes, and where it is individual and the guild is little more
26 than a voluntary association. The question of how caste and guild rules are
27 reconciled in cases where the guild includes men of many castes, and what
28 happens when they conflict, is also one of considerable interest. That the
29 orcanisation is slngul.srly complete and the authority wielded by it exceed-
30 inglv great, is beyond the possibility of doubt ; and it is a common observa-
31 tion that disputes between members of these classes rarely come before om-
32 courts for adjudication, being almost invarialdy settled by the administrative
33 body of the caste or guild. This may be a survival from old times, when
34 such coui-ts or officers of justice as existed would proliably have declined to be
35 troubled with the disputes of low caste men.
36 VAGRANT AND CRIMINAL TRIBES.
37 572, The Wandering and criminal tribes.— The figures for the wander-
38 ing and criminal tribes are given in Alistract No. 96 on page 309.* This
39 group and that of the gipsy triljes which I shall discuss next are so much akin
40 that it is impossible to draw any definite lino of demarcation. I have attempt-
41 ed to include in the former the vagrant, criminal, and hunting tribes, and
42 in the latter those who earn their living by singing, dancing, tumbling, and
43 various kinds of performances. The two together form an exceedingly
44 interesting section of the population, but one regarding which I have lieen
45 able to obtain singularly little information. They are specially interesting,
46 , not only because almost every tribe included in these two groups is probably
47 aboriginal in its ultimate origin, for so much could be said, I believe, of some
48 even of our Jat tril^es ; but also because they have in a special degree retained
49 ] their aboriginal cristoms and beliefs and in fact are at the present moment tlie
50 Paujab representatives of the indigenous inhajjitants of the Pro\dnce A