Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/210

 KUMBOS. (273)

HE Hindoo tribe or sect which is the subject of the Photograph, is found at Lahore in considerable numbers, where they carry on the trade of confectioners, and, in some instances, are petty merchants. In the Googaira district they are settled as cultivators on the banks of the Sutlej, and are svipposed to be immigrants from the country on the Gagur river, near Sirhind. They are all Soodra Hindoos of respectable, if not high caste, and are evidently, from their light colour and features, of Aryan descent. In the Hindoo faith they are followers of the Vishnuite doctrines, though not thoroughly, as they eat animal food; and it is probable, like other separate castes in the Soodra division, who have no especial trade or calling, that they are descended from the offspring of a Brahmin by a Soodra mother, and have thus become a distinct class. The Kumbos do not, therefore, intermarry with other Soodra classes, but preserve their own grade intact. As a sect they are peaceful and industrious, whether as confectioners or as cultivators; but they do not rank with confectioners who follow that trade by hereditary profession in all other parts of India, a trade which is widely practised and supported by all classes of the people. Sweetmeats of all kinds are in universal use, and are rarely made in private houses. No domestic ceremony or entertainment is complete without them, and many of them are so good that they are worth copying by professional confectioners of England, and would, no doubt, be improved by them. The luscious and crisp julaybees, eaten hot from the frying-pan; the delicate white balls of refined sugar, which are called barfa, or snow dissolved in water, make delicious "eau sucree;" the thin, crisp, transparent sugar cakes, which are broken into hot milk, and a host of other preparations, which need not be mentioned here, are familiar to all who have partaken of them, and belong to India alone.

The costumes of the Kumbos represented in the Photograph do not differ from that of Hindoo Soodras in general: the man on the left wears a red turban and scarf, with a waist cloth of blue and white, and he has silver bangles on his wrists; the other a red turban, with a quilted chintz tunic, red, yellow, and white, a red scarf about his neck, and a lower dress of green and white check. They are cultivators, and respectable members of their class.