o take lower-caste women either as wives
or concubines, and a large mixed class would naturally result. Such
children, born and brought up in the households of their fathers,
would not be full members of the family, but would not be regarded as
impure. They would naturally be put to the performance of the menial
household duties, for which the servile castes were rendered unsuitable
through their impure status. This would correspond with the tradition
of the large number of castes originating in mixed descent, which is
given in the Hindu sacred books. It has been seen that where menial
castes are employed in the household, classes of mixed descent do as a
matter of fact arise. And there are traces of a relationship between
the cultivators and the menial castes, which would be best explained
by such an origin. At a betrothal in the great Kunbi cultivating
caste of the Marathas, the services of the barber and washerman must
be requisitioned. The barber washes the feet of the boy and girl and
places vermilion on the foreheads of the guests; the washerman spreads
a sheet on the ground on which the boy and girl sit. At the end of
the ceremony the barber and washerman take the bride and bridegroom
on their shoulders and dance to music in the marriage-shed, for which
they receive small presents. After a death has occurred at a Kunbi's
house, the impurity is not removed until the barber and washerman have
eaten in it. At a Kunbi's wedding the Gurao or village priest brings
the leafy branches of five trees and deposits them at Maroti's [69]
temple, whence they are removed by the parents of the bride. Before
a wedding, again, a Kunbi bride must go to the potter's house and be
seated on his wheel, while it is turned round seven times for good
luck. Similarly at a wedding among the Hindustani cultivating castes
the bride visits the potter's house and is seated on his wheel; and
the washerman's wife applies vermilion to her forehead. The barber's
wife puts red paint on her feet, the gardener's wife presents her with
a garland of flowers and the carpenter's wife gives her a new wooden
doll. At the wedding feast the barber, the washerman and the Bari or
personal servant also eat with the guests, though sitting apart from
them. Sometimes members of the menial and serving castes are invited
to the funeral feast as if they belonged to the dead man's caste. In
Madras the barber and his wife, and the washerman and his wife, are
known as the