Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/154

 RUNNEEA JATNEE. (146)

UNNEEA is a girl of the Jat tribe, and a resident of Coel. She is of the poorer orders, and earns a scanty subsistence by spinning thread. Women of the better classes of Jats never go abroad unveiled, but are secluded like Mahomedans; in fact, it seems to depend upon the ability of the husband to keep servants for his wife, whether she goes abroad or not. Among the lower classes there is no restriction whatever. The Jats are one of the most numerous tribes in Central India, and will be described more particularly in connexion with Photograph No. 151. The specimen of female selected is not a happy one, as many of the Jat women are remarkably handsome, with fine figures; but it may have been very difficult, nay unpossible, to induce any respectable woman, except one of the very poorest class, to sit for her portrait; any breach of customary etiquette being considered equivalent to the loss of honour among an exclusive people like the Jats, who in social position consider themselves only inferior to the Rajpoots. The rehgion of this class is Hindoo. The poorer males are cultivators and soldiers. The food of the Jat tribe is generous; but the lower orders for the most part use coarse bread and pulse. They live to the age of forty or fifty years.

Rmmeea is sixteen years of age, and of average height (five feet). Her complexion is dark, and eyes and hair black. Her dress is a wide petticoat or bodice, and a sheet which covers her head, envelopes her person, and is tucked into her waist on the left side. The material is coarse, but the colours are bright and pretty.