The Chitaris pursue their old trade, principally in Nagpur city,
where the taste for wall-paintings still survives; and they decorate
the walls of houses with their crude red and blue colours. But
they have now a number of other avocations. They paint pictures
on paper, making their colours from the tins of imported aniline
dyeing-powders which are sold in the bazar; but there is little
demand for these. They make small pictures of the deities which
the people hang on their walls for a day and then throw away. They
also paint the bodies of the men who pretend to be tigers at the
Muharram festival, for which they charge a rupee. They make the clay
paper-covered masks of monkeys and demons worn by actors who play the
Ramlila or story of Rama on the Ramnaomi festival in Chait (March);
they also make the _tazias_ or representations of the tomb of Hussain
and paper figures of human beings with small clay heads, which are
carried in the Muharram procession. They make marriage crowns; the
frames of these are of conical shape with a half-moon at the top,
made from strips of bamboo; they are covered with red paper picked
out with yellow and green and with tinfoil, and are ornamented with
borders of date-palm leaves. The crowns cost from four annas to a
rupee each. They make the artificial flowers used at weddings; these
are stuck on a bamboo stick and at the arrival and departure of the
bridegroom are scrambled for by the guests, who take them home as
keepsakes or give them to their children for playthings. The flowers
copied are the lotus, rose and chrysanthemum, and the imitations are
quite good. Sometimes the bridegroom is surrounded by trays or boxes
of flowers, carried in procession and arranged so as to look as if
they were planted in beds. Other articles made by the Chitrakar are
paper fans, paper globes for hanging to the roofs of houses, Chinese
lanterns made either of paper or of mica covered with paper, and
small caps of velvet embroidered with gold lace. At the Akti festival
[478] they make pairs of little clay dolls, dressing them as male and
female, and sell them in red lacquered bamboo baskets, and the girls
take them to the jungle and pretend that they are married. Formerly
the Chitrakars made clay idols for temples, but these have been
supplanted by marble images imported from Jaipur. The Jingars make
the cloth saddles on which natives ride, and some of them bind books,
the leather for which is made from goat-skin, and is not considered so
impure as that made from the hides of cattle. But one class of them,
who are considered inferior, make leather harness from cow-hide and
buffalo-hide.