Those of the caste who are Kabirpanthis abstain from animal food,
but the others eat the flesh of most animals except tame pig, and
also drink liquor. Their social status is very low, but they are
not usually considered as impure. Their women are tattooed on the
right arm before marriage, and on the left after arrival at their
husband's house. Like several other low castes, they do not wear
nose-rings. The principal occupation of the caste is the weaving
of coarse country cloth, but as the trade of the hand-weaver is
nowadays precarious and unprofitable many of them have forsaken it
and taken to cultivation or daily labour. Mr. Nesfield says of them:
"The material used by the Kori is the thread supplied by the Dhunia
(Bahna); and thus the weaver caste has risen imperceptibly out of
that of the cotton-carder, in the same way as the cobbler caste has
risen out of the tanner. The art of weaving and plaiting threads
is very much the same process as that of plaiting osiers, reeds and
grass, and converting them into baskets and mats. This circumstance
explains the puzzle why the weaver caste in India stands at such
a low social level. He, however, ranks several degrees above the
Chamar or tanner; as, among Hindus, herbs and their products (cotton
being of course included) are invariably considered pure, while the
hides of dead animals are regarded as a pollution." This argument is
part of Mr. Nesfield's theory that the rank of each caste depends on
the period of civilisation at which its occupation came into being,
which is scarcely tenable. The reason why the weavers rank so low may,
perhaps, be that the Aryans when they settled in villages in northern
India despised all handicrafts as derogatory to their dignity. These
were left to the subject tribes, and as a large number of weavers
would be required, the industry would necessarily be embraced by
the bulk of those who formed the lowest stratum of the population,
and has ever since remained in their hands. If cloth was first woven
from the tree-cotton plant growing wild, the business of picking
and weaving it would naturally have fallen to the non-Aryan jungle
tribes, who afterwards became the impure menial and labouring castes
of the villages.
The weaver is the proverbial butt of Hindu ridicule, like the tailor
in England. 'One Gadaria will account for ten weavers'; 'Four weavers
will spoil any business.' The following story also illustrates their
stupidity: Twenty weavers got into a field of kans grass. They thought
it was a tank and began swimming. When they got out they said, "Let
us all count and see how many we are, in case anybody has been left
in the tank." They counted and each left out himself, so that they
all made out nineteen. Just then a Sowar came by, and they cried,
to him, 'Oh, Sir, we were twenty, and one of us has been drowned in
this tank.' The Sowar seeing that there was only a field of grass,
counted them and found there were twenty; so he said, 'What will you
give me if I find the twentieth?' They promised him a piece of cloth,
on which the Sowar, taking his whip, lashed each of the weavers across
the shoulders, counting as he did so. When he had counted twenty he
took the cloth and rode away. Another story is that a weaver bought a
buffalo for twenty rupees. His brother then came to him and wanted a
share in the buffalo. They did not know how he should be given a share
until at last the weaver said, "You go and pay the man who sold me the
buffalo twenty rupees; and then you will have given as much as I have
and will be half-owner of the buffalo." Which was done. The ridicule
attaching to the weaver's occupation is due to its being considered
proper for a woman rather than a man, and similar jests were current
at the tailor's expense in England. In India the weaver probably takes
the tailor's place because woven and not sewn clothes have hitherto
been generally worn, as explained in the article on Darzi.