1 VAGRANT, MENIAL, AND ARTISAN CASTES. 285
2 the like. But I have classed as Gipsies, for want of a better distinction, those
3 tribes who perform in any war, who practise tumbling or rope-dancing-, lead
4 about bears and monkeys, and so forth. The gipsy, and apparently all the
5 vagrant tribes, are governed by tribal councils and often appeal to ordeals. A
6 coinmon form of ordeal is that the accused stands in a pond with a pole in his
7 hand. At a given signal he ducks his head ; while another man, honest and
8 time, starts running at a fair pace for a spot 70 paces distant. If the accused
9 can keep under water while the 140 paces there and back are accomplished, he
10 is acc]uitted. If not, he has to submit to such penalty as the coumil may
11 impose.
12 [P. 315] 588, The Nat and Bazigar (Caste Nos. 98 and 89).— The Nat is the
13 tyi^ical gipsy of the Panjiib. It is possible that there may be i^i'opeily some
14 distinction between the Nat and the Bazigar ; but the two vsords are
15 synonymous in general parlance, and I shall discuss the figures togelher. In
16 the Lahore division indeed, and in some other districts, the two have not been
17 returned separately. Bazigar is a Persian word meaning '' he ^\ho does bdzi "
18 or any sort of game or play, but it is applied only to jugglers and acrobats.
19 Some say that the Bazigar is a tumbler and the Nat a rope-dancer ; others
20 that the Bazigar is a juggler as well as an acrobat, while the Nat is only the
21 latter, and it is possible that those who reach the higher ranks of the pro-
22 fession may call themselves by the Persian name ; others again say that
23 among the Nats the males only, but among the Bazigars both sexes perform ;
24 and this latter distinction is reported from several districts. On the whole
25 it is perhaps more probaljle that the Nat is the caste to which both classes
26 belong, and Bazigar an occupational term. In the Dehli and Hissar divisions
27 the word used for Bazigar is Biidi, a term which is apparently quite unknown
28 in any other part of the Panjab except Ambala ; and I have classed Badi and
29 Bazigar together.
30 The Nats then, with whom I include the Bazigars, are a gifsj tribe
31 of vagrant habits who wander about with their families, settling for a few
32 days or weeks at a time in the vicinity of large villages or towns, and con-
33 structing temj^orary shelters of grass. In addition to practising acrobatic
34 feats and conjuring of a low class, they make articles of grass, straw, and
35 reeds for sale ; and in the centre of the Panjab are said to act as Mfrasis,
36 though this is perhajis douljtful. They often practise surgery and physic
37 in a small way, and arc not free from the suspicion of sorcery. They
38 ai'e said to be divided into two main classes; those whose males only
39 perform as acrobats, and those whose women, called Kabutri, perform and
40 fP. 316] piostitute themselves. About three-quarters of their numljer returned them-
41 selves as Hindus, and most of the rest as Musalmans. They mostly mairy
42 by phcra, and Imrn the dead ; but they are really outcasts, keeping many
43 dogs with which they hunt and eat the vermin of the jungles. They
44 are said especially to reverence the goddess Devi, Guru Teg Bahadur, the Guru
45 of the Sikh scavengers, and Hanuman or the monkey god, the last because of
46 the acrobatic powers of monkeys. They very generally trace their origin from
47 Marwar ; and they are found all over the Province except on the frontier,
48 where they are apparently almost unknown. The large numbers returned in
49 Bahawalpur and Montgomery, in the former as Nats and in the latter as
50 Bazigars, is very striking. Their different tribes are governed by a Raja and
51 Rani, or King and Queen, like the gipsy tribes of Europe. The Musalman
52 Nats are said to prostitute their unmamed, but not their married women ; and