Viewing page 179 of 197

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

KUMHARS.

at a nominal fixed rent, as his special hereditary right.  The position of an hereditary potter, therefore, is a highly respectable one in every village community.  In return for what he receives, the potter has to furnish, free of cost, water and cooking vessels for travellers, and at certain marriages and festivals to the community at large.  With the people and other artizans, he maintains a sort of system of interchange of work and produce, which is perfectly understood.  The potter is also frequently a farmer of land, and in general a good one, being, after the nature of persons of his calling, sober and industrious.  In religion he is a Hindoo, and for the most part a follower of Siva, rather than Krishna - that is, of ancient Hindooism, rather than modern.  There is little doubt, perhaps, that in Central and Southern India, he is descended from a convert from aboriginal faith; for many of the ancient superstitions, such as Shakti and snake worship, and that of the Gram Deotas, or village divinities, observed by shepherds and milk sellers, &c., are shared by the potter and his family.  The potters employ Brahmins as priests in all religious ceremonies, such as marriage and the like; but it cannot be said they have any particular reverence for them.  Their knowledge of their own professed faith is indeed extremely limited, and only what can be gathered from recitations by Brahmins, held in the village on certain occasions.  They have, however, priests of their own who are not Brahmins, and who, while they instruct in moral observances after a homely fashion, keep the members of the caste from transgression of its rules.  Kumhars are not forbidden to eat animal food, but very few indulge in it.  They prefer, as a rule, the simple farinaceous and vegetarian diet common to most other castes.  It is only on occasions of domestic festivals or of sacrifice, that they indulge in animal food at all.  Some of the potters are addicted to spirituous liquors, and occasionally use them to excess, and all smoke tobacco; but, as a class in general, they are remarkably sober, wherever they are found, extremely inoffensive, and noted for an absence of crime, even above other artizan classes of similar rank.  For the most part they are ignorant, especially in the northern portions of India, and perhaps likely to remain so.  Nor are they at all remarkable for that quick-witted intelligence which is characteristic of other castes and grades of artizan divisions of the people.  Kumhars do not seclude their women, and a good deal of the trade work is done by them.  Nor is it uncommon to see them at the wheel, throwing off ordinary vessels as rapidly as the men.

The only attempt to improve Indian pottery that has been made, is at Madras, under the superintendence of Dr. Hunter, whose pupils have produced, and still produce, many useful and elegant articles of ceramic art.  In the south of India, the finest material for pottery exists in the Kao-lin clay, found in conjunction with granite; and Dr. Hunter, in prosecution of his able instructions, has made the practicable use of this material known to numbers of potter pupils. But the