In Chhattisgarh the Chamars are the most criminal class of the
population, and have made a regular practice of poisoning cattle with
arsenic in order to obtain the hides and flesh. They either mix the
poison with mahua flowers strewn on the grazing-ground, or make it
into a ball with butter and insert it into the anus of the animal when
the herdsman is absent. They also commit cattle-theft and frequently
appear at the whipping-post before the court-house. The estimation in
which they are held by their neighbours is reflected in the proverb,
'Hemp, rice and a Chamar; the more they are pounded the better they
are.' "The caste," Mr. Trench writes, "are illiterate to a man,
and their intellectual development is reflected in their style of
living. A visit to a hamlet of tanning Chamars induces doubt as to
whence the appalling smells of the place proceed--from the hides or
from the tanners. Were this squalor invariably, as it is occasionally,
accompanied by a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, victuals and
clothing, the Chamar would not be badly off, but the truth is that in
the northern Districts at all events the Chamar, except in years of
good harvest, does not get enough to eat. This fact is sufficiently
indicated by a glance at the perquisites of the village Chamar, who
is almost invariably the shoemaker and leather-worker for his little
community. In one District the undigested grain left by the gorged
bullocks on the threshing-floor is his portion, and a portion for
which he will sometimes fight. Everywhere he is a carrion-eater,
paying little or no regard to the disease from which the animal
may have died." The custom above mentioned of washing grain from
the dung of cattle is not so repugnant to the Hindus, owing to the
sacred character of the cow, as it is to us. It is even sometimes
considered holy food:--"The zamindar of Idar, who is named Naron Das,
lives with such austerity that his only food is grain which has passed
through oxen and has been separated from their dung; and this kind
of aliment the Brahmans consider pure in the highest degree." [468]
Old-fashioned cultivators do not muzzle the bullocks treading out
the corn, and the animals eat it the whole time, so that much passes
through their bodies undigested. The Chamar will make several maunds
(80 lbs.) of grain in this way, and to a cultivator who does not
muzzle his bullocks he will give a pair of shoes and a plough-rein and
yoke-string. Another duty of the Chamar is to look after the _banda_
or large underground masonry chamber in which grain is kept. After
the grain has been stored, a conical roof is built and plastered over
with mud to keep out water. The Chamar looks after the repairs of the
mud plaster and in return receives a small quantity of grain, which
usually goes bad on the floor of the store-chamber. They prepare the
threshing-floors for the cultivators, making the surface of the soil
level and beating it down to a smooth and hard surface. In return
for this they receive the grain mixed with earth which remains on
the threshing-floor after the crop is removed.
Like all other village artisans the Chamar is considered by the
cultivators to be faithless and dilatory in his dealings with them;
and they vent their spleen in sayings such as the following:--"The
Kori, the Chamar and the Ahir, these are the three biggest liars that
ever were known. For if you ask the Chamar whether he has mended your
shoes he says, 'I am at the last stitch,' when he has not begun them;
if you ask the Ahir whether he has brought back your cow from the
jungle he says, 'It has come, it has come,' without knowing or caring
whether it has come or not; and if you ask the Kori whether he has
made your cloth he says, 'It is on the loom,' when he has not so much
as bought the thread." Another proverb conveying the same sense is,
'The Mochi's to-morrow never comes.' But no doubt the uncertainty
and delay in payment account for much of this conduct.