The caste make eating and drinking vessels, ornaments and ornamental
figures from brass, copper and bell-metal. Brass is the metal most in
favour for utensils, and it is usually imported in sheets from Bombay,
but in places it is manufactured from a mixture of three parts of
copper and two of zinc. This is considered the best brass, though
it is not so hard as the inferior kinds, in which the proportion of
zinc is increased. Ornaments of a grey colour, intended to resemble
silver, are made from a mixture of four parts of copper with five of
zinc. Bell-metal is an alloy of copper and tin, and in Chanda is made
of four parts of copper to one part tin or tinfoil, the tin being the
more expensive metal. Bells of fairly good size and excellent tone
are moulded from this amalgam, and plates or saucers in which anything
acid in the way of food is to be kept are also made of it, since acids
do not corrode this metal as they do brass and copper. But bell-metal
vessels are fragile and sometimes break when dropped. They cannot also
be heated in the fire to clean them, and therefore cannot be lent to
persons outside the family; while brass vessels may be lent to friends
of other castes, and on being received back pollution is removed by
heating them in the fire or placing hot ashes in them. Brahmans make
a small fire of grass for this purpose and pass the vessels through
the flame. Copper cooking-pots are commonly used by Muhammadans
but not by Hindus, as they have to be coated with tin; the Hindus
consider that tin is an inferior metal whose application to copper
degrades the latter. Pots made of brass with a copper rim are called
'Ganga Jamni' after the confluence of the dark water of the Jumna
with the muddy stream of the Ganges, whose union they are supposed
to symbolise. Small figures of the deities or idols are also made of
brass, but some Kasars will not attempt this work, because they are
afraid of the displeasure of the god in case the figure should not
be well or symmetrically shaped.