e throne,'--similar intrigues on the part of high-born women
with their servants being not unknown. The Kahar or palanquin-bearer
was probably the same caste as the Dhimar. Landowners would maintain
a gang of Kahars to carry them on journeys, allotting to such men
plots of land rent-free. Our use of the word 'bearer' in the sense
of a body-servant has developed from the palanquin-bearer who became
a personal attendant on his master. Well-to-do families often have a
Nai or barber as a hereditary family servant, the office descending
in the barber's family. Such a man arranges the marriages of the
children and takes a considerable part in conducting them, and acts
as escort to the women of the family when they go on a journey. Among
his daily duties are to rub his master's body with oil, massage his
limbs, prepare his bed, tell him stories to send him to sleep, and so
on. The barber's wife attends on women in childbirth after the days
of pollution are over, and rubs oil on the bodies of her clients,
pares their nails and paints their feet with red dye at marriages
and on other festival occasions. The Bari or maker of leaf-plates
is another household servant. Plates made of large leaves fastened
together with little wooden pins and strips of fibre are commonly used
by the Hindus for eating food, as are little leaf-cups for drinking;
glazed earthenware has hitherto not been commonly manufactured, and
that with a rougher surface becomes ceremonially impure by contact
with any strange person or thing. Metal vessels and plates are the
only alternative to those made of leaves, and there are frequently
not enough of them to go round for a party. The Baris also work as
personal servants, hand round water, and light and carry torches at
entertainments and on journeys. Their women are maids to high-caste
Hindu ladies, and as they are always about the zenana are liable to
lose their virtue.

31. Status of the village menials.

The castes of village and household menials form a large group between
the cultivators on the one hand and the impure and servile labourers
on the other. Their status is not exactly the same. On the one hand,
the Nai or barber, the Kahar and Dhimar or watermen, the household
servants, the Bari, Ahir, and others, some of the village priests and
the gardening castes, are considered ceremonially pure and Brahmans
will take water from them. But this is a matter of convenience, as,
if they were not so held