Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s5.5

c48.s5.5

§ 73. **Bamboo-Workers** (295,200). The making of mats, brushes and weavers' combs is an occupation associated with a gipsy life, not only in India but wherever these nomadic tribes have established themselves, and generally connotes an inclination towards burglary or at least petty larceny. In the east, moreover, the girls of the castes in question are usually engaged in ministering to the sexual pleasures of the lower classes and even of those of the upper who dare to run the risk of excommunication from their caste. There is a more or less definite line drawn, however, in India between these castes and those, equally low and impure, who devote themselves exclusively to working in bamboo, a plant which in several cases has become the totem of the whole tribe, and is wor-