Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/97

 KHUTEEE. (246)

HUTEEES are a Hindoo sect, who are the chief penmen of Northern India, and act as accountants, secretaries, village registrars, merchants, and petty traders. In the time of the Delhi empire they filled offices of state with great ability and integrity, and many of them rose to high rank and honour. Being educated in Persian, they accompanied the imperial viceroys and governors as secretaries and accountants to distant provinces of the empire, and in many instances settled there, their descendants following the same hereditary offices and occupations as their forefathers. Some of them worship Vishnu, others Sheeva, others Gunesha, and they acknowledge Brahmins as their priests, and worship them also on occasions of high ceremonials. They principally use a vegetable diet, but eat sheep's or goat's flesh occasionally, and drink spirituous liquors, in some instances to excess. They are in general very intelligent, and often well educated, and are a useful and well-disposed class of the general community. In the Punjab they seem to be divided into four general sects or tribes—Mahrotah, Kapoor, Seth, and Kannah; the charjote, or four divisions, which intermarry with each other.

In the Hazara the Khutrees are settled among a nearly entire Mahomedan population, in which they occupy nearly the same place as the Marwarree does to the people of Central India and the Deccan (ante Vol. IV., No. 201). They have a monopoly of money-lending and general trade, and by their natural shrewdness and usefulness have become necessary to the rude people among whom they dwell. A Khutree is a necessary inhabitant of every village, and though bitterly despised for his idolatrous faith, is yet protected and esteemed. He advances money on usurious interest for marriages and other ceremonials, agriculture, or purchase of clothing, and is repaid mostly in grain or produce, honey, bee's wax, gums, and the like, which find a ready sale at the great marts of the Punjab. Their diet in the Hazara is of the most frugal description, and for the most part consists of milk and vegetables, with unleavened bread; and to