BORN TO SHAVE BUFFALOES !

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17629, 5 December 1922, Page 12

BORN TO SHAVE BUFFALOES !

(Bv An Angl<|-Imlian.) "What is your occupation?" "Shaving buffaloes." The man who made this leplv was not only a, buffalo-shaver by profession but also a buffalo-shaver by birth. That is to say, he was a. member of a 6mall caste to which buffalo-shaving is a traditional occupation. Incidentally, old Mrs Buffalo —that lumbering, uncouth, furtive-eyed, semitame creature —requires an occasional shave to keep her in health. It sounds odd, stated as a shave. But, after all, lioroes in England have to ''get their hair cut" once or twice a year. But this is a digression. The point is that birth into a caste normally includes birth into a profession. The old rigidity of the one-caste-one-occupation principle is largely breaking down. But it remains to a considerable extent, and will remain longest in the case of castes which are depressed and occupations which are unattractive.

is by no means the most curious of these birthrights. A fair number of persons return their occupations at each Ind'ian Census as "Cattle-poisonej-,"'or as "Wizard" or "Witcli." And there are large and even powerful castes who are traditionally thieves. "Lifters" is the literal translation of the appropriate name of one of these. 1

And even thieving is specialised down to still greater refinements. Enchi of these castes has its own special modus operandi, For instance, there is one thieving fraternity which dresses up in the garb of re?pectable castes and prac-' tisas the confidence trick.

More respectable, but no less picturesque,. is the traditional calling of the caste which sweeps up and sifts the dust from goldsmiths' shops - of the wandering acrobats, whose children begin training from the moment they can stand; of the herb-doctors, who collect strange roots and berries and make up' poultices; of drummers and blowers on strange trumpets; of astrologers; of bards, who compose and sing verses in honour of the (dubiously genuine) ancestry of the rich. But in India to-dav the rigidity of the caste system is gradually breaking up, whatever its defenders may say. And that is why it is so desirab'e to seize upon and fix in permanent daguerreotype those more curious and picturesque traditions that still survive.