Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/92

MUCCHI are dancing-girls attached to the temples in South Canara,and their ranks are swelled by Konkani, Shivalli, and other Brāhman women of bad character.

The Moyilis have adopted the manners and customs of the Bants, and have the same balis (septs) as the Bants and Billavas.  Mucchi.——The Mucchis or Mōchis are summed up, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as being a Marāthi caste of painters and leather- workers. In the Mysore Census Report it is noted that " to the leather-working caste may be added a small body of Mōchis, shoemakers and saddlers. They are immigrant Mahrātās, who, it is said, came into Mysore with Khasim Khān, the general of Aurangzīb. They claim to be Kshatriyas and Rājputs — pretensions which are not generally admitted. They are shoemakers and saddlers by trade, and are all Saivas by faith." "The Mucchi," Mr. A. Chatterton writes,* "is not a tanner, and as a leather-worker only engages in the higher branches of the trade. Some of them make shoes, but draw the line at sandals. A considerable number are engaged as menial servants in Government offices. Throughout the country, nearly every office has its own Mucchi, whose principal duty is to keep in order the supplies of stationery, and from raw materials manufacture ink, envelopes and covers, and generally make himself useful. A good many of the so-called Mucchis, however, do not belong to the caste, as very few have wandered south of Madras, and they are mostly to be found in Ganjam and the Ceded Districts." The duties of the office Mucchi have further been summed up as "to mend pencils, prepare ink from powders, clean ink-bottles, stitch note-books, paste covers, rule forms, 