Dhobi

“ But it must be confessed that this desirable result is attained at much cost to the garments themselves. The profession of washerman, or dhobi as he is called, like most other occupations in India, is chiefly an hereditary one. It is very difficult for anyone outside the dhobi caste to get a footing in the profession. Washing is done in the open air in a stream or river, or on the edge of a tank, or howd. These washing-places are so jealously guarded by the dhobis that an intruder on their sacred preserves has no chance. ”

“ As the lightning scorns the oak, as the fire triumphs over the venerable pile, as the swollen river scoffs at the P. W. D., while arch after arch tumbles into its gurgling whirlpools, so the Dhobie, dashing your cambric and fine linen against the stones, shattering a button, fraying a hem, or rending a seam at every stroke, feels a triumphant contempt for the miserable creature whose plodding needle and thread put the garment together. This feeling is the germ from which the Dhobie has grown. ”

“ Noblesse oblige; you cannot evade the necessity for clean shirt-fronts, ill able as your precarious income may be to meet it. In these circumstances a Dhobi with good connections is what you require. He finds you in shirts of the best quality at so much an evening, and you are saved all risk and outlay of capital; you need keep no clothes except a greenish-black surtout and pants and an effective necktie. ”

“ The Dhobi is then called to wash the clothes of the household, and their earthen pots are thrown away. The head of the newborn child is shaved clean, as the birth-hair is considered to be impure, and the hair is wrapped up in dough and thrown into a river.
8. Names
A child is named on the seventh or twelfth day after its birth, the name being chosen by the Mohtūria or caste headman. The ordinary Hindu names of deities for men and sacred rivers or pious and faithful wives for women are employed; instances of the latter being Ganga, Godāvari, Jamuna, Sīta, Laxmi and Rādha. ”

“ They will eat almost any meat, including beef and pork, and all kinds of fish, but not monkeys, vermin, and the like. They will not eat other people’s leavings, nor food touched by a Musahar, Dom, Chamâr, Dhobi, Halâlkhor, or Dharkâr. Like all of the Dom race, they have a hatred for Dhobis, and consider them the vilest of all castes. They have the usual taboos. They will not touch their younger brother’s wife, their child’s mother-in-law (samdhin) , nor will they mention their wives by name. The elder brother’s wife can eat out of the same dish as her husband’s younger brother ”

“ I am an amateur philosopher and amuse myself detecting essence beneath semblance and tracing the same principle running through things the outward aspect of which is widely different. I have studied the Dhobie in this spirit and find him to be nothing else than an example of the abnormal development, under favourable conditions, of a disposition which is not only common to humanity, but pervades the whole animal kingdom. ”

“ The Chakla caste of Madras are leather-workers, but in Chānda a community of persons is found who are known as Chakla and are professional washermen. In 1911 the Dhobis numbered 165,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, or one to every hundred inhabitants. They are numerous in the Districts with large towns and also in Chhattīsgarh, where, like the Dhobas of Bengal, they have to a considerable extent abandoned their hereditary profession and taken to cultivation and other callings. No account worth reproduction has been obtained of the origin of the caste. ”

“ In proof of the truth of this legend, they point to the Rajas of Dhalbhum, who are said to be dhobis by caste, and who are notorious for having practised human sacrifices, till very recent times, in honor, it is said, of this very Rankini, who became their tutelary deity and the principal object of worship in the country; her temple is said (and the site is pointed out at Sarangarh, near Ambikanagar) to have existed till within the last few years, and to have been regularly supplied with human victims till it was destroyed by the British authorities. ”

“ The dhobie or washerman is another important individual in the Anglo-Indian establishment. The great majority of dhobies are Hindus; but in Eastern Bengal, Mohammedan dhobies are often to be met with. ”

“ Kunbis will take water from them, and Gonds, Dhīmars and Dhobis will accept cooked food. All Gowāri men are tattooed with a straight vertical line on the forehead, and many of them have the figures of a peacock, deer or horse on the right shoulder or on both shoulders. A man without the mark on the forehead will scarcely be admitted to be a true Gowāri, and would have to prove his birth before he was allowed to join a caste feast. Women are tattooed with a pattern of straight and crooked lines on the right arm below the elbow, which they call Sīta’s arm. ”

“ When the river is not in flood, it is a peaceful stream that meanders over the gleaming yellow sands like a blue ribbon. Buffaloes wallow in its shining pools, and the dhobies spread their white garments to dry on the warm sand of its bed. Fishermen wade waist-deep in the stream and cast their nets with inimitable skill. ”

“ It is noted by the Missionary Gloyer54 that the colour of the skin of the Dōmbs varies from very dark to yellow, and their height from that of an Aryan to the short stature of an aboriginal, and that there is a corresponding variation in facial type.
For the following note on the Dōmbs, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. They are the weavers, traders, musicians, beggars, and money-lenders of the hills. Some own cattle, and cultivate. The hill people in the interior are entirely dependent on them for their clothing. A few Dōmb families are generally found to each village. ”

“ Dhoya, I have left my world far off. My people—on the floor of the lake they are dancing and singing, and on the islands of the lake; always happy, always young, always without change. I have left them for thee, Dhoya, for they cannot love. Only the changing, and moody, and angry, and weary can love. I am beautiful; love me, Dhoya. ”

“ The Dheba of the place furnished us, by way of supper, with some excellent fresh fish; and, for sleeping, with a very snug wind-tight chamber, and thick mattresses stuffed with the hair of the musk deer.
Next day we travelled along a small river, which subsequently joins the River of Gold-dust. Our hearts were lighter than usual, for we had been told that we should arrive the same day in a charming country. As we went along, we accordingly looked first on one side and then on the other, with an uneasy curiosity; from time to time we rose on our stirrups in order to see further ”

“ So the hunched, misshapen, and degraded old savages, each with his attendant youth, embarked upon the now quiet river and paddled out of sight of the alien race who loathed them.
The dominant Vigo, who had lazily watched them depart, now dropped his assumed calm as suddenly as he did the velvet coat.
"Home!" he commanded. "To warn the fort!"
As they hurried along, he declared: "The renegades must be captured and defeated. They are wicked men."
"The Indians are dreadfully wicked," shuddered Doby.
"They know nothing better than their own customs; I pity them," said the great friend of Indians. ”

“ As Doby eyed the savage he thought: "How handsome he is and how powerful! Perhaps Tecumseh had the same appearance."
Under the boy's admiring stare the Indian stood absolutely and perfectly still, minute after minute, minute after minute, until Doby became possessed of an impulse to test that stolidity, to shock that dignity. So he impishly blew into the pig's-bladder whistle. Its blast rent the air.
With snake-like quickness the Indian's hand shot out. He grabbed the whistle and hid it in his blanket. He offered a blue-jay feather in exchange. ”

“ It was daytime when Doby again opened his eyes. He was between the voyageurs under the fallen tree near the canoes. On the river bank sat the old Indians. Francis Vigo, jaunty in velvet, cap, plume, and sword, was smoking the calumet.
One voyageur whispered to Doby, "Indians want to burn Vincennes."
The other murmured, "Père François tries to prevent that."
The first again: "They mean to join with renegades and capture the fort. Renegades get Government money. Indians get fire-water." ”

“ Underneath them the feet of Dhoya beat up the ground, but the feet of the other as he rushed hither and thither, matching his agility with the mortal’s mighty strength, made neither shadow nor footstep on the sands. Dhoya was wounded, and growing weary a little, when the other leaped away, and, crouching down by the water, began—“You have carried away by some spell unknown the most beautiful of our bands—you who have neither laughter nor singing. ”

“ Several of them were married to Bedouin women, and carried on a trifling trade in provisions with the ships that pass.
The neighbouring mountains of Wodjeh are inhabited by the Bedouin tribe of Bily. To the north of Wodjeh, and about two days journey south of Moeyleh, lies the anchorage of Dhoba, renowned for its excellent wells. The anchoring-place is in a large bay, one of the best harbours on this coast, and the wells are about half an hours distance inland, under a grove of palm and Doum date-trees. ”

“ This caste appears to be an offshoot of the Dōm caste of Bengal, Behār, and the North-Western Provinces. Like the Dōms, the Dōmbas are regarded with disgust, because they eat beef, pork, horse-flesh, rats, and the flesh of animals which have died a natural death, and both are considered to be Chandālas or Pariahs by the Bengālis and the Uriyas. The Dōmbs weave the cloths and blankets worn by the hill people, but, like the Pariahs of the plains, they are also labourers, scavengers, etc. ”

“ Every blood-drop in their lips, every cloud in the sky, every leaf in the world changed a little, while they brushed back their hair and kissed. All things change save only the fear of change. And yet for his hour Dhoya was happy and as full of dreams as an old man or an infant—for dreams wander nearest to the grave and the cradle. ”

“ Restore her, Dhoya, and go free.” Dhoya answered him no word, and the other rose and again thrust at him with the spear. They fought to and fro upon the sands until the dawn touched with olive the distant sky, and then his anger fit, long absent, fell on Dhoya, and he closed with his enemy and threw him, and put his knee on his chest and his hands on his throat, and would have crushed all life out of him, when lo! he held beneath his knee no more than a bundle of reeds. ”

“ The four streams or arms of the Indus which rise in the Himalayas, namely, the Jelum, the Chenāb, the Rāvee and the Sutlej, intersect the country, and, with the Indus, divide it into four Doabs or Provinces.
The first Doab ("country between two rivers") , lying between the Indus and the Jelum, is 147 miles in breadth; this Doab is intersected with defiles and mountain chains, and covered with thickets. It is the worst cultivated, the most barren and thinly peopled of all the Doabs. ”

“ He thinks it is still his after all this so-called buying."
"He gives us a deed to it," said Doby. "Anybody can understand what a land title is."
"An Indian cannot. One day a white man, all smiles, comes to an Indian's land, gives him a tawdry present, juggles a piece of parchment, and shows the Indian how to make his mark among printed words which he cannot read. Next day, the white man, all frowns, says to the Indian, 'What d'you mean, making yourself to hum on my ground? Git out!' and he kicks him off. It makes the Indian mad." ”

“ But Dhoya, being filled with his anger fit at the sight of his enemy, answered, “I will play, and I know well the stake you mean, and I name this for mine, that I may again have my knee on your chest and my hands on your throat, and that you will not again change into a bundle of wet reeds.” His companion lay down on a skin and began to cry a little.
Dhoya felt sure of winning. He had often played in his boyhood, before the time of his anger fits, with his masters of the galley; and besides, he could always return to his hands and his weapons once more. ”

“ Then commenced that festival which lasted forty days, and is termed the Festival of the honours of hospitality to the Sons of Aklis, wherein the head-cook of the palace, Uruish, performed wonders in his science, and menaced the renown of Zrmack, the head-cook of King Shamshureen. Even so the confectioner, Dōb, excelled himself in devices and inventions, and his genius urged him to depict in sugars and pastes the entire adventures of Shibli Bagarag in search of the Sword. Honour we Uruish and Dōb! as the poet sayeth:
Divide not this fraternal twain ”

“ Dniester, a river which takes its rise in Austria, in the Carpathians, enters Russia, flows generally in a SE. direction past Bender, and after a rapid course of 650 m. falls into the Black Sea at Akjerman.
Doab, The, a richly fertile, densely peopled territory in the Punjab, between the Jumna and Ganges, and extending 500 m. N., that is, as far as the Himalayas; it is the granary of Upper India.
Dobell, Sidney, poet, born at Cranbrook, in Kent; wrote, under the pseudonym of Sidney Yendys, the “Roman,” a drama, “Balder,” and, along with Alexander Smith, sonnets on the war (the Crimean) ”

“ They are the hereditary musicians of the Mahārāja of Jeypore. A Dōmb beggar, when engaged in his professional calling, goes about from door to door, playing on a little pipe. Their supposed powers over devils and witches result in their being consulted when troubles appear. Though the Dōmbs are regarded as a low and polluting class, they will not eat at the hands of Kōmatis, Bhondāris, or Ghāsis. ”

“ Here, although the limits of the gotra are not coextensive with those of the more venial sin, it is to be observed that the Dhobás all claim descent from a common ancestor, and they eat and drink together indiscriminately. It is not considered any offence among the Bhuiyars of South Mirzapur for a married woman to grant her favours to her husband’s brothers. ”