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FEBRUARY, 1882.]
BOMBAY BEGGARS AND CRIERS.
The
hawker gives preference to the Kâlikoți ones, because, being inferior, they are cheaper, the price of one ranging between 4 to 8 pies. There is no certainty of their always being found fresh and good when broken. higher castes and better classes of Hindus always buy the Mâhim cocoanuts, as they yield a comparatively large supply of what is called "milk" when scraped into fine particles on an instrument (khaoni) for the purpose. When this is done, the pulp called choya, is ground on a stone called pátd, when a quantity of milk,' a white oily substance, is obtained. There is scarcely a dish cooked amongst the well-to-do Bombay Hindus, in which this milk' does not find a place. Cocoanuts are used throughout India, and the milk is put in dishes cooked by Hindus, Europeans, Portuguese, Muhammadans and Pârsis. The cocoanut is broken into two equal pieces with a hatchet or other instrument, but often on a stone.
Kâlikôt cocoanuts are generally given as presents to Brahmans by the Hindus, and to women who have been paying a visit at the house, and offered to gods at the time of pujá, which subsequently are taken away by the Upadhy á after the pujá is over.
No Hindu will take off the stalk of the cocoanut-that by which it had clung to the tree; if this be cut off, the cocoanut is considered as impure, and it cannot therefore be used for pujá or given away as a present to another, though with feelings akin to dissatisfaction, he may not object to its use in his own house. When a cocoanut is deprived of this appendage, it is called mundú or 'bald,' and styled an outcaste. When one Hindu sends another a present of fruit, or of anything else, the party receiving the gift places a cocoanut in the plate when returning it, rather than return it empty.
The majority of the Gâondekar hawkers are. Bhandaris or toddy-drawers, and the business of selling goes on all the year round. These people are generally poor. The sons or husbands of a few are employed as clerks, but the majority of the men and women work as grass-cutters, cart-drivers and cultivators. The Maratha hawkers, in addition to selling cocoannts, have shops where they sell vegetables, and generally they are better off than their brethren the Gâondekars. They spend their
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afternoons or evenings at the vakhars at which they haggle for the purchase of cocoanuts for next day's supply.
"The cultivation of the two principal products in the bágáyat or garden land, viz. cocoanut and betelnut, is as follows:-After the nuts have become quite ripe, which is ascertained when they fall of themselves to the ground, they are buried about two feet in the soil, which is previously loosened and levelled, and after the plants are a year old they are transplanted, and buried about two feet deep. The soil is then enriched by mixing up with it salt and nagli (cynosurus corocanus). The chief thing afterwards is the watering, and great expense has to be gone to in making wells and watercourses, and wheels. After the 8th, 9th, or 10th year, the trees commence to bear, yielding twice a year, and sometimes thrice: 120 cocoanuts and 250 supâris is about the annual average produce of each tree. A great many cocoanut trees are also tapped: the toddy is extracted by cutting off the tops of the young shoots when they are little more than two feet long, and tying them very tight at intervals of a few inches. The trees tapped, while the juice is extracted, yield no cocoanuts. The instrument for cutting the shoot is called dut. It is as sharp as a razor. The juice of the tree drops into an earthen vessel which hangs on the top of the shoot, and is emptied every morning and evening into a calabash, which the Bhandari carries up the tree, hanging it behind him on a hook. A sêr and a half is about the average daily quantity extracted from each tree. The tádi is mostly made into liquor; a little of it being sold in a raw state. Bhandâris are expert in climbing cocoanut trees. No string is used as is the custom in some parts of Bombay and the Northern Konkan, but they ascend by means of notches cut in the trunk of the tree about 2 ft. apart. The calabash into which the tadi is emptied is hung on a hook which is tied to the waist."
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BANGLE SELLERS.
These are Hindu coppersmiths by caste. They go about the town with a small-sized box tied up in a piece of cloth, and slung across the shoulders, containing glass bangles-both Chinese and country-made. Most of these men are in easy circumstances. They go about from
