1 VAGRANT, MENIAL, AND ARTISAN CASTES.
2 S07
3 619. The Machhl and Men (Caste No. 28).— MachLi is, as I have
4 said, only the western name for the Musalmau Jhinwar. In the Amritsar
5 division those returning themselves as Machhi have been included under
6 Jhinwar. In the Lahore and Rawalpindi divisions both names are used ;
7 and in tlie western districts lioth, 'U'here used at all, are applied indifferentlv
8 to the same person. But in j)arts of the Central Panjab, where the eastern
9 Hindu meets the western Musalman, the two terms are generally used dis-
10 tinctively. The Machhi occupies in the centre and west the same position
11 which the Jhinwar fills in the east, save that he performs in the foimer parts of
12 the Province a considerable part of the agricultural labour, while in the east
13 he seldom actually works in the fields, or at least not as a part of his custom-
14 ary duties ; though of course all classes work for pay at harvest time, when
15 the rice is being planted out, and so forth. But besides the occupations
16 already described for the Jhinwar,^ the Machhi is the cook and midwife of
17 the Punjab proper. All the Dayas and Dayis, the accoucheui', midwife, and
18 wetnurse class, are of the Jhinwar or Machhi caste. So too the common oven
19 which forms so important a feature in the village life of the Panjab proper,
20 and at which the peasantry have their bread baked in the hot weather, is almost
21 always in the hands of a Machhi for Musalmaus and a Jhinwar for Hindus.
22 In some parts he is also the wood-cutter of the village. In the Derajat he is
23 sometimes called ]\Ianjhi or Manjhera, more particularly when following the
24 occupation of a fisherman ; and the name Men is often given him under the
25 same circumstances in the rest of the Central and Western Panjab, along the
26 banks of our great rivers. Both these I'astes, where returned separately, have
27 been classed as Machhi, as have also the Sammi or fisherman and quail-catcher,
28 and the Mahigir, Maehhahra, Machhiyania, or fisherman. The details ai-e given
29 below. Of the Mens in the Lahore division, 7,035 are in Lahore and .3,095 in
30 Gujranwala, while of those of the Multan division all but 180 are in Mont-
31 gomery. Thus the Mens seem almost confined to the middle Satluj. On the
32 lower Indus, in Gujarat and lower Sindh INIachhi seems to mean nothing more
33 than fisherman. The figures of Abstract No. li (page 224<*) show that many
34 of the Machhis of the Derajat have returned themselves as Jats.
35 ENTRIES CLASSED AS MACHHI.
36 Ektet.
37 Dehli.
38 Hissar.
39 Jalandhar.
40 Lahore.
41 Pindi.
42 Multan.
43 Derajat.
44 Men ...
45 756
46 10,743
47 70
48 5,195
49 •••
50 Maucbera
51 ...
52 ...
53 ...
54 48
55 MaWgir, Maehhahra, &c....
56 70
57 35
58 ...
59 ...
60 89
61 ..«
62 Sammi
63 ...
64 ...
65 ...
66 168
67 ...
68 ...
69 620. The Bhatyara and Bharbhunja (Caste Nos. 92 and 108).— The
70 Bhatyara is the baker and seller of ready-cooked food, who is to be found in
71 all the caravanserais of our towns and encamping grounds. He is, I believe
72 I The carriage of burdens slung from a banffi or yoke seems to be almost unknown in the west
73 of the Punjab.
74 i3