uts on festival days. In Chhattisgarh more than
half the Chamars belong to the reformed Satnami sect, by which the
worship of images is at least nominally abolished. This is separately
treated. Mr. Gordon states [458] that it is impossible to form a clear
conception of the beliefs of the village Chamars as to the hereafter:
"That they have the idea of hell as a place of punishment may be
gathered from the belief that if salt is spilt the one who does this
will in Patal--or the infernal region--have to gather up each grain of
salt with his eyelids. Salt is for this reason handed round with great
care, and it is considered unlucky to receive it in the palm of the
hand; it is therefore invariably taken in a cloth or in a vessel. There
is a belief that the spirit of the deceased hovers round familiar
scenes and places, and on this account, whenever it is possible,
it is customary to destroy or desert the house in which any one has
died. If a house is deserted the custom is to sweep and plaster the
place, and then, after lighting a lamp, to leave it in the house and
withdraw altogether. After the spirit of the dead has wandered around
restlessly for a certain time it is said that it will again become
incarnate and take the form of man or of one of the lower animals."

10. Occupation.

The curing and tanning of hides is the primary occupation of the
Chamar, but in 1911 only 80,000 persons, or about a seventh of the
actual workers of the caste, were engaged in it, and by Satnamis the
trade has been entirely eschewed. The majority of the Chhattisgarhi
Chamars are cultivators with tenant right, and a number of them have
obtained villages. In the northern Districts, however, the caste
are as a rule miserably poor, and none of them own villages. A
very few are tenants, and the vast majority despised and bullied
helots. The condition of the leather-working Chamars is described
by Mr. Trench as lamentable. [459] Chief among the causes of their
ruin has been the recently established trade in raw hides. Formerly
the bodies of all cattle dying within the precincts of the village
necessarily became the property of the Chamars, as the Hindu owners
could not touch them without loss of caste. But since the rise of
the cattle-slaughtering industry the cultivator has put his religious
scruples in his pocket, and sells his old and worn-out animals to the
butchers for a respectable sum. "For a mere walking skeleton of a cow
or bullock