n that
woven and not sewn clothes have always been commonly worn.

In the Central Provinces, at least, the Darzi caste is practically
confined to the towns, and though cotton jackets are worn even by
labourers and shirts by the better-to-do, these are usually bought
ready-made at the more important markets. Women, more conservative in
their dress than men, have only one garment prepared with the needle,
the small bodice known as _choli_ or _angia_. And in Chhattisgarh,
a landlocked tract very backward in civilisation, the _choli_ has
hitherto not been worn and is only now being introduced. Though he
first copied the Muhammadan and now shows a partiality for the English
style of dress for outdoor use, the Hindu when indoors still reverts to
the one cloth round the waist and a second over the shoulders, which
was probably once the regular garb of his countrymen. For meals the
latter is discarded, and this costume, so strange to English ideas,
while partly based on considerations of ceremonial purity, may also
be due to a conservative adherence to the ancient fashion, when sewn
clothes were not worn. It is noticeable also that high-caste Hindus,
though they may wear a coat of cloth or tasar silk and cotton trousers,
copying the English, still often carry the _dupatta_ or shoulder-cloth
hanging round the neck. This now appears a useless encumbrance, but
may be the relic of the old body-cloth and therefore interesting as a
survival in dress, like the buttons on the back of our tail-coats to
which the flaps were once hooked up for riding, or the seams on the
backs of gloves, a relic of the time when the glove consisted simply
of finger-lengths sewn together. [515] More recently the _dupatta_ has
been made to fulfil the function of a pocket-handkerchief, while the
educated are now discarding the _dupatta_ and carry their handkerchiefs
in their pockets. The old dress of ceremony for landowners is the
_angarkha_, a long coat reaching to the knees and with flaps folding
over the breast and tied with strings. This is worn with pyjamas and is
probably the Muhammadan ceremonial costume as remarked by Buchanan. In
its correct form, at, least it has no buttons, and recalls the time
when a similar state of things prevailed in English dress and the
'trussing of his points' was a laborious daily task for every English
gentleman. The _ghundis_ or small pieces of cloth made up into a ball,
which were the precursors of the button, may still