they are given the designation either
of Chitrakar, Chitevari or Murtikar. In Berar some Jingars have taken
up the finer kinds of iron-work, such as mending guns, and are known
as Jirayat. All these are at great pains to dissociate themselves
from the Chamar caste. They call themselves Thakur or Rajput and have
exogamous sections the names of which are identical with those of the
Rajput septs. The same people have assumed the name of Rishi in Bengal,
and, according to a story related by Sir H. Risley, claim to be debased
Brahmans; while in the United Provinces Mr. Crooke considers them to
be connected with the Srivastab Kayasths, with whom they intermarry
and agree in manners and customs. The fact that in the three Provinces
these workers in leather claim descent from three separate high castes
is an interesting instance of the trouble which the lower-class Hindus
will take to obtain a slight increase in social consideration; but
the very diversity of the accounts given induces the belief that all
Mochis were originally sprung from the Chamars. In Bombay, again,
Mr. Enthoven [278] writes that the caste prefers to style itself
Arya Somavansi Kshatriya or Aryan Kshatriyas of the Moon division;
while they have all the regular Brahmanical _gotras_ as Bharadwaja,
Vasishtha, Gautam and so on.

2. Legends of origin

The following interesting legends as to the origin of the caste adduced
by them in support of their Brahmanical descent are related [279] by
Sir H. Risley: "One of the Praja-pati, or mind-born sons of Brahma,
was in the habit of providing the flesh of cows and clarified butter as
a burnt-offering (_Ahuti_) to the gods. It was then the custom to eat
a portion of the sacrifice, restore the victim to life, and drive it
into the forest. On one occasion the Praja-pati failed to resuscitate
the sacrificial animal, owing to his wife, who was pregnant at the
time, having clandestinely made away with a portion. Alarmed at this
he summoned all the other Praja-patis, and they sought by divination
to discover the cause of the failure. At last they ascertained what
had occurred, and as a punishment the wife was cursed and expelled
from their society. The child which she bore was the first Mochi or
tanner, and from that time forth, mankind being deprived of the power
of reanimating cattle slaughtered for food, the pious abandoned the
practice of killing kine altogether. Another story is that Muchiram,
the ancestor of the