Village Life in India, Part Two
"A little farther is a large shed under a great tree, and round the shed are broken carts, and planks of wood lie about. This is the carpenter's shop, and…
From: 1917 C.E. To: 1917 C.E.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Among the Village Folk,” Pt. 1, from Home Life in India by John Finnemore, 1917.
The group near the well breaks up. The merchant hurries from the spot, the women run off with their water, and the Brahmin mendicant also goes his way, still muttering angrily, for he must now busy himself with his purification. He must wash the caste mark from his forehead, perform many ablutions, and again smear himself with earth, ashes, and cow-dung before he can be clean from the defilement of the merchant's shadow.
A little farther is a large shed under a great tree, and round the shed are broken carts, and planks of wood lie about. This is the carpenter's shop, and the carpenter is a very important man in the village, for he is one of the five useful artisans of Indian life. The others are the potter, the shoemaker, the weaver, and the blacksmith. With these men ready to work in wood, in pottery, in leather, in weaving, in iron, the village can exist without outside help: it is sufficient in itself at every point.
Here, again, caste comes in. Each trade forms a caste of its own, and all born within the trade follow it. There is no talk in a Hindu family of what a boy shall be, or what he would like to be. That is settled from the moment of his birth. If he be born in a carpenter's family, he will be a carpenter; in a weaver's family, he will be a weaver; the son of a potter will become a potter; and so on. In this way there is a great inherited skill in the fingers of an Indian workman when he comes to practise his craft, and the carpenter whose shed we are approaching can afford us a striking proof of this.
Among his tools there is one of which he makes great use, a peculiar kind of adze. This tool is very difficult to manage in the hands of an unskilled workman, yet there, just within the shed, is the carpenter's son, a little thin boy, barely ten years old, using it with the greatest dexterity. A grown man, not of the carpenter caste, could not use it so well after five years' practice. But that boy's ancestors for a hundred generations have been swinging that tool, and their skill lives again in him.
The carpenter is hard at work on a new cart, and he is clad only in a turban and a waistcloth, and we notice that he has a thread across his shoulders. This is the sacred thread which shows that he belongs to one of the five orders of great artisans. He has always plenty of work to do, for he must make yokes, ploughs, and handles for tools, door-posts, doors, rafters, bedsteads, and wooden spoons. He builds the carts which are drawn by the slow-moving bullocks, and at times he has to build a great car on which the village idol is borne in state at the annual festival. If he is a clever carver, he is sometimes employed to carve the image of a village god, and when it is set up in the temple he receives a handsome present.
Each farmer for whom he works gives him so much grain, and he charges a certain amount for making special things, such as finely carved bedsteads for well-to-do people, and ornamental door-posts and decorations for fine houses. But, as a rule, he is not paid a great deal in money; people give him food and things which he needs, in return for his labour, and so he makes a comfortable living.
As this is a large village, there is bound to be a blacksmith in it, for the farmers and peasants need the carpenter and the blacksmith above all other craftsmen. His shop is proclaimed, as it is in every country, by the clang of hammers, and by the knot of men standing about, waiting for their tools to be mended or new ones to be made. His tools are very simple. He has a few hammers, some pincers, and a pair of bellows. Yet he does all the iron work of the village, and gives satisfaction to his customers. He makes hinges, locks, and keys for doors; spades, reaping hooks, axes, sickles, and crowbars for work in the woods and fields; knives and choppers for use in the kitchen; and many other implements.
The tap-tap of lighter hammers calls us to the workshop of the goldsmith, who lives a little farther off. Every large village has its goldsmith, and he is one of the busiest workers in the place. Not only are the Indian peasants very fond of jewellery, but, as we have seen, the spare cash of the household is turned into ornaments and worn by the women. From morning till night women are coming and going to the shop of the goldsmith. One brings a small bag of coins to be made into a bangle, a necklet, a nose-ring, an earring, or an anklet; another has a broken ornament which needs mending; a third has an old ornament which she wishes him to melt down and remake in a new shape.
But the goldsmith is a sad rogue. Of all the craftsmen in the village, he has by far the worst character. He is full of cunning, and the sly tricks by which he cheats the simple country folk are legion. A woman brings a piece of gold to be made into a rich bangle. It is made. Some time afterwards the family needs money, and the ornament is turned into cash. But the purchaser only offers half of the value of the original gold. Why? The goldsmith has filled the inside of the bangle with copper and kept part of the gold for himself. The country people tell stories without end of the thievish tricks and sly ways of the goldsmith, and here is one of them.
One day a woman brought a bag of rupees to a goldsmith, and told him to make them into a silver bangle, and he promised he would do so at once. But his promise was, as usual, worth nothing at all, and the woman came time after time, and the bangle was not ready. At last she flew into a great rage, called him by every kind of evil name, and said that she would not leave his workshop without either the bangle or the rupees.
The goldsmith seemed to pay no heed to a word that she said, and went on shaping a nose-ring as if she had not been there. The truth was that he had nothing to say: he had spent every one of the rupees, and knew not what to do. The woman spread her upper garments on the floor, lay down on them, and said once more that there she would stay, day and night, till she had her own.
The day was very hot, the woman had walked a long way, and was very tired, and before long she fell asleep. Now the cunning goldsmith saw his chance. He slipped to her side and rubbed a certain kind of gum on her eyelids. Then he went back to his work and made such a noise with his hammer that the woman woke up. When she found she could not open her eyes, she cried out in terror, and called upon the goldsmith for help.
"Is there something wrong?" asked the goldsmith in tones of wonder.
"I am blind!" cried the woman. "I cannot open my eyes. Oh, what shall I do! What has happened to me?"
"Ah!" said the goldsmith, “I see what has happened. You came here and called me by every evil name you could think of. I bore your abuse in silence and patience. But the goddess of our craft will not be so patient; she has struck you blind for reviling me."
"What can I do to regain my sight?" said the woman. “I have many children and a husband to care for."
"There's only one thing to be done," replied the goldsmith, gravely. "You must make an offering to my goddess, and then she will forgive."
"Gladly will I do it," cried the poor woman. "Take every rupee that I brought to you and offer them up to her, if that will give me back my sight."
“It is enough," said the goldsmith; and he took some cold water and washed the woman's eyes, and she found, to her great joy, that she could see as well as ever. Then she went away, thanking the goldsmith for restoring her sight, and marvelling at the wonderful power of the goddess of the goldsmith's craft.
As we leave the goldsmith's house, we meet the dhoby, the village washerman, and his wife, carrying along the street the big bundles of dirty clothes they have just collected from the houses of the village. They go to the houses together, because the dhoby himself may not venture into the women's apartments, so his wife goes there to fetch the soiled clothes of the women, and often stays a long time to tell the ladies what is going on in the village.
The wife of the dhoby carries the dirty garments on a hooked stick, for she would be denied by their touch; but the dhoby himself is free from that caste rule, and his shoulders are loaded with as big a burden as he can carry. Behind them comes one of their children, carrying a big pot. In this is placed the food which the washerwoman has collected from the customers as part payment for her husband and herself.
The dhoby is used for all kinds of odd jobs as well as washing, and thus he has won the name of "son of the village," and his wife is the "daughter of the village." The village people supply him and his wife with a hut on some patch of ground belonging to the village, give them food and a little money, and some small presents when the dhoby makes himself useful at a wedding or a funeral. If it is a long way to the river or tank where he washes the clothes, they supply him with a donkey or two to carry the packs; but if the water is near at hand, he and his family must carry the bundles for themselves.
At the waterside the clothes are dipped and rinsed and beaten against stones till the dirt is driven out of them, starched, and laid out to bleach and dry in the sun. Next they are folded and packed ready to take back to their owners. The dhoby and his wife may have to wash hundreds of garments, large and small, at a time, and the owners never mark their clothes, yet the dhoby never makes a mistake. He has his own marks, and they serve him well; the pile of clothes handed in at each door is certain to be correct.
As a rule, the dhoby and his wife are very poor, and are dressed in rags. But on great occasions they will come out as grand as anyone. This is because they claim the right to use the clothes which may be in their hands at any time. At a wedding the dhoby attends in a rich robe belonging to a village magnate; the dhoby's wife is draped in a beautiful sari, a gown which is the property of the wife of the wealthy money-lender. The owners turn a blind eye on these birds who thus flaunt in their fine feathers; it is an understood thing, and if the clothes are brought home in a day or so, nicely washed and neatly folded, no notice is taken.
Finnemore, John. Home Life in India. A. & C. Black, 1917.
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