Of the two subtribes already mentioned the Chaukhutia are recognised
to be of illegitimate descent. As a consequence of this they strive to
obtain increased social estimation by a ridiculously strict observance
of the rules of ceremonial purity. If any man not of his own caste
touches the hut where a Chaukhutia cooks his food, it is entirely
abandoned and a fresh one built. At the time of the census they
threatened to kill the enumerator if he touched their huts to affix the
census number. Pegs had therefore to be planted in the ground a little
in front of the huts and marked with their numbers. The Chaukhutia
will not eat food cooked by other members of his own community, and
this is a restriction found only among those of bastard descent, where
every man is suspicious of his neighbour's parentage. He will not take
food from the hands of his own daughter after she is married; as soon
as the ceremony is over her belongings are at once removed from the
hut, and even the floor beneath the seat of the bride and bridegroom
during the marriage ceremony is dug up and the surface earth thrown
away to avoid any risk of defilement. Only when it is remembered that
these rules are observed by people who do not wash themselves from one
week's end to the other, and wear the same wisp of cloth about their
loins until it comes to pieces, can the full absurdity of such customs
as the above be appreciated. But the tendency appears to be of the
same kind as the intense desire for respectability so often noticed
among the lower classes in England. The Chindas, whose pedigree is
more reliable, are far less particular about their social purity.