_Teli._ [664]--The occupational caste of oil-pressers and sellers. The
Telis numbered nearly 900,000 persons in 1911, being the fifth caste
in the Province in point of population. They are numerous in the
Chhattisgarh and Nagpur Divisions, nearly 400,000 belonging to the
former and 200,000 to the latter tract; while in Berar and the north
of the Province they are sparsely represented. The reason for such
a distribution of the caste is somewhat obscure. Vegetable oil is
more largely used for food in the south and east than in the north,
but while this custom might explain the preponderance of Telis in
Nagpur and Chhattisgarh it gives no reason to account for their small
numbers in Berar. In Chhattisgarh again nearly all the Telis are
cultivators, and it may be supposed that, like the Chamars, they have
found opportunity here to get possession of the land owing to its not
being already taken up by the cultivating castes proper; but in the
Nagpur Division, with the exception of part of Wardha, the Telis have
had no such opening and are not large landholders. Their distribution
thus remains a somewhat curious problem. But all over the Province the
Telis have generally abandoned their hereditary trade of pressing oil,
and have taken to trade and agriculture, the number of those returned
as oil-pressers being only about seven per cent of the total strength
of the caste. The name comes from the Sanskrit _tailika_ or _taila_,
oil, and this word, is derived from the _tilli_ or sesamum plant.