Viewing page 178 of 197

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

KUMHARS.

but brass or copper would be impossible, except unglazed earthenware, to be broken as soon as used.  With Mahomedans it is the same; but the occasional use of English plates and dishes is beginning to be observable, and may increase; and in many old families, large China bowls are preserved, which tell of the times of the emperors, when China ware was largely imported for royal use.  It might have been possible for the Kumhars to have improved their wares upon these models; but that has not been the case, and there is no perceptible difference, as has been stated above, between the quality of the pottery of the cairn period and that now manufactured by the Kumhars.  The wheel is everywhere worked on the same principle.  It is set in a steel socket in the ground, and is put in motion by a pole shod with iron, which is inserted into a small hole in the outer rim; and the wheel is then turned gradually to an extremely rapid rate, and left spinning round by its own impetus, to increase which a ball of clay is often placed on the edge.  Sometimes the wheel is of solid wood, as that in the picture; in others it has spokes and a heavy outer rim; but the principle and mode of working is the same.  The clay is placed in the centre above the pivot, and moulded into the form required by the fingers of the workmen, or by the application of a wooden tool in portions which the fingers cannot reach, especially in the interior of large vessels with narrow necks, used for holding rice or other grain, as well as onions, tamarinds, and other daily household requirements.  The Kumhar makes ware of all sizes, from the smallest earthen cup or water vessel, to jars or urns of from two to three feet high and proportionate width.  Such vessels require larger wheels than that shown, and when thrown off, are beaten as they dry with wooden spatulas, to strengthen them for baking.  Some of the larger vessels are not without a certain elegance of form, but the manufacture itself is everywhere of a very clumsy and imperfect nature.  

The Kumhar is a Soodra.  He makes no pretension to rank as a Vaisya; and he takes his place with other artizans whose occupation is hereditary.  That of the Kumhar is strictly so.  As the father is a potter, so the son will be; the daughters will marry potters, and no others; and thus the station, like the skill of the potter, never changes.  In the village council, which was a notable feature of the ancient village system of the Hindoos, and still exists in most parts of Central and Southern India, the potter is one of the hereditary officers, like the blacksmith and carpenter.  It is evident that, as the services of such artizans were indispensable to the early communities, they were wisely rendered hereditary, by securing to the possessors certain rights, privileges, and immunities.  Thus the potter had, and still possesses, his original share of collections of grain and other produce from the farmers.  He has a turban and a scarf from the weavers, or a yearly compensation of so much per loom.  He has a pair of new shoes per year from the shoemakers, and the like; and he has "the potter's field," in rent free tenure, with other lands,