1 26 PANJAB CASTES.
2 eating together or confarreatio, more especially wben the object of the cerft-
3 mony is to admit a new member into the gronp, as at adoption or marriage.^
4 359 General distribution of agricultural castes. — Abstract No. 64
5 on the next page* shows the general distribution of castes throughout the
6 Province, the ligures representing the proportion Ijorne by each group of
7 castes to every thousand of total population.
8 The distribution of each caste will lie discussed more fully when the
9 caste itself comes under consideration. It will of course be understood that
10 the castes are grouped very roughly. Indeed it will be apparent from the
11 following pages that any but the roughest classification is impossible, for not
12 only is the class within which any given caste should fall incapable of exact
13 definition, btxt it varies in different parts of the Province. Still some sort of
14 classification was necessary on which to arrange the chapter, and I have there-
15 fore divided the various castes and tribes into three great groups. The first
16 or landowning and agricultural group comprises half of the total population
17 of the Panjab, and is even more important socially, administratively, and
18 politically than it is numerically. It is divided into six sections. The first
19 includes t he two great frontier races, the Biloches and Pathans ; and with
20 the latter I have taken the Tanaoli, Tajik and Hazara, as closely allied to
21 them if not really entitled to be ranked with them. Next follows the great
22 Jat race, and after that the Rajputs, with the Thakars and Rathis whom it is
23 so impossible to separate from them, and one or two minor castes which are
24 perhaps rather Rajput tribes than separate castes. The next class, the minor
25 dominant tribes, includes all those castes which, while hardly less important
26 in their particular territories, are less numerous and less widely distributed
27 than the four great races already specified. Such are the Gakkhars and
28 Awans of the Salt-range Tract, the Kharrals and Daudpotras of the Western
29 Plains, the Dogars and Rors of the Eastern Plains, the Meos of Gurgaon,
30 and the Gujars of the hills. Next follow the minor agricultural tribes, the
31 Sainis, Ariiin?, Kanets, Ghiraths, Ahirs, Mahtams and tke like, who, while
32 forming a very important factor in the agricultural community of the Panjab,
33 occupy a social and political position of far less importance th.iu that of the
34 dominant tribes. The last class is headed Foreign Races, and includes Shekhs,
35 Mughals, Tui'ks, and the like, most of whom perhaps have no real title to the
36 name under which they have returned themselves, while many of them own
37 no land and are mere artisans, though these cannot be separated from the still
38 greater number who are landowners.
39 360. The distribution of these classes is very marked. The Biloches
40 and Pathans are of course chiefly to be found in the trans-Indus districts ;
41 but while the latter form the great bulk of the group in the districts where
42 they prevail, the former, who have settled in the Province at a far more
43 recent date, are accompanied by a very large class of inferior cultivating
44 classes of all castes who are, in accordance with the custoin of the lower
45 Indus, grouped under the comprehensive name of Jat, a term whose signifi-
46 cance is iu these parts occupational as much as ethnic. Setting these districts
47 aside, the Jats are to ije found in greatest predominance in the great Sikh
48 States and districts, and in the south-east of the Province in Rohtak and
49 Hissar. In the sub-montane districts, the Salt-range Tract, and Kangra,
50 ' For instance, the ceremony of gof Jeunila described in section 354. The eating together
51 very commonly takes the form of a distribution of gur or Bweatmeats.