Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/50

CARPENTERS. and defined in many parts of India, the village system of local hereditary officers allotted a high place to the carpenter. The Aryan system of village settlement provided a set of village artificers, equal to the wants and necessities of the community, and created them councillors, for the assistance of the executive head. The duties and emoluments of these offices were defined. They received lands free of rent for their services; and collections of grain from every field, as well as of vegetables, sugar, cotton, and all produce, were put into a general fund, as it were, and divided when the harvest seasons were closed. Thus to each community were secured the services of a carpenter, a blacksmith, a potter, and others, twelve in number; and of a second series of twelve inferior artizans and labourers, who were provided for in like manner. All these trades were hereditary, as well as the emoluments and dignities; and thus every village, however small or large, was independent of other aid, so far as the wants of its inhabitants were concerned. The sons of the carpenter became carpenters in succession—the sons of the blacksmith, blacksmiths; and if a son did not perhaps equal his father in skill, he was, in any case, the village carpenter, and did the work, and the next might be better, so all were content. The system of hereditary village servants was an admirable one, for communities were sparsely scattered over the country, and had there been no local artificers, it would have been impossible to obtain them from other villages as they were needed. In villages where there are hereditary carpenters, they rank next to the patell, or chief magistrate, and next to them the blacksmiths. They have special dues and gifts for making sheds for marriages, and festivals at the temples, and with their other earnings, shares of harvest produce, and free lands, are generally in very comfortable circumstances. Many of them, too, hold farms on their own account.

Carpenters usually maintain a vegetable diet, though, except in the highest classes who wear the sacred thread, they do not object to animal food—that is, sheep's or goat's flesh, and fish. Some of them, in some localities, drink spirits, but not to excess, and all smoke tobacco. They do not seclude their women, and some of the men arc able to read and write—a class which is increasing. Most of them, by hereditary instruction, are acquainted with a few simple geometrical problems, and they all use the compass and square in their work. Their costume is very simple—a dhoty or waist cloth, and a scarf, worn either over a light tunic or the bare body, even when at work, with a turban, and is hardly changed in any part of India.