Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.34.1

c48.s2.34.1

§ 47. **Toddy-drawers** (4,765,400). Between the lower artisans and the field-labourers may be taken the castes which live by tapping the palm for its juice, in some parts of India a body of numerical importance. They occupy but a low position, partly by reason of their origin, partly again because the toddy they provide is often kept till fermented, and being thus an intoxicant, is relegated to the impure articles of consumption. This is the case still more markedly with the distilling castes, which are classed among the urban and dealt with separately. Along the coasts the coco and palmyra abound, and the date flourishes in Telingāna and the Gangetic valley. It is here, therefore, that these castes are in greatest strength. In lower Bengal and on the Gujarāt coast, though the material in question is abundant, it is the custom of the cultivators to tap their own trees or to employ the ordinary field-labourer or lower village menial to do the work for them. The tree-tapping castes, too, even where there is the greatest field for their labour, are largely engaged in cultivation, either as landholders or labourers. The chief caste of this description in the Ganges valley is the Pāsī, a name derived from a noose, probably in reference to the belt by means of which the palm is climbed, or, where the caste is addicted to wandering in the jungle for hunting purposes, from the snare then used.