Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

;
REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA. *09
following are some instances taken at random from the schedules.
practically every case to Madrasi coolies and labourers :—
Pule. I
Paliya.: -Paliyachi.
j
They refer in
Pali.
Padiya. Pariyachi.
I |
It seems at first sight an easy enough matter to assign these to their proper
castes. ^ When, however, it actually comes to allocating the entries, the matter is
not so simple as it would at first sight appear. Pule may be either Pillai or Palli
in all probability the former, which is not a caste name. Pali strikes the abstractor
as being obviously Palli till it commences to figure on several pages side by side
with Paliya and Padiya, when it begins to dawn upon him that Paliya and Padiya
are nothing more or less than Paria (" I " and " y " —which is " r " in Arakanese—
being interchangeable) and that it is possible that Pali is only Paliya heard wrong
or carelessly written down. He makes his choice, treats Paliyas and Padiyas as
Parias, and possibly all goes smoothly till he comes upon a " Paliyachi " wedged
in among a number of Paliyas. This gives him pause, and when, later on, he
comes upon a column of Paliyachis and Pariyachis he is forced to the conclusion
that at some stage or other the Pallis or Parias have been converted into Padiyachis.
Difficulties like the above can be multiplied indefinitely.
I may seem to have dwelt at somewhat undue length on this aspect of the.
caste returns in Burma. No one, it may be said, is likely to place any great reliance
on the caste figures collected in Burma. That this has been the case in the
past is, no doubt, true. I submit, however, that since the 1891 Census the body
of caste folk in the province has increased so largely and has now reached so substantial
a figure, that, unless some disclaimer such as the above is made, the
public may be moved to think that the familiarity with and knowledge of caste has
grown to an extent proportionate to the growth of the Hindu population, and to
treat the data with the same respect as that with which they treat the returns compiled
for castes in their locality of origin. With " the assurance that if they do so
they are doomed to disappointment, I pass on to the consideration of the castes
that are found in Burma.
158. They are, of course, all non-indigenous. The Yabeins, the Ponnas and
... .
n the pagoda slaves referred to in paragraph 226 of Mr.
No real castes in Burma. ^
r
, ,*Vi
. , < , , i i
bales Report are survivals . or what must have been
in bygone days a near approach to "functional" castes, but the Burmese nature
is so essentially democratic and regardless of social distinctions, that the Indian
caste system has never been able to gain a foothold here. It is ture that in his
report on the operations during the season 1893—97, the Settlement Officer,
Minbu, has referred to a class known as the Thuganngs, the landed proprietors of
the Salin subdivision, who intermarry among themselves, live in groups of families
in superior houses, and have gradually come to consider themselves and to
be looked upon by the people as a separate class ; but though the creation of this
rural aristocracy is interesting in so far as it illustrates a tendency that has hitherto
been looked upon as wholly foreign to the character of the Burman, these very
select landlords cannot be said to exhibit the really essential features of a caste.
There appear to have been at one time among the Chins 36 professional clans
whose occupations were hereditary. The Pazan Lo was the priestly clan, and
there were goldsmith and cutlar clans. These have, however, all disappeared by
now, and it is doubtful whether at any time they really resembled castes.
159. The Indian castes have been described so fully elsewhere, that at first
.. sight it would appear superfluous to treat of them in
detail. Numerically, however, the strangers within
our gates have become so important an element of the population, that I hardly
think that a description of a few of the castes most strongly represented in the
province would be out of place. For the following particulars I am indebted for
the most part to the interesting and scholarly account of castes contained in the
1 89 1 Madras Census Report by Mr. Stuart.
160. The Paraiyan or Pariah caste is numerically one of the strongest of the
castes of Madras. In 1891 there were in the preara,yan
*
sidency over two million Paraiyans. In Burma therfr
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