46 



MALPE I. 



Fishing is carried on by Mogers, one of the Hindu castes of 

 hereditary fisher-folk. This is one of their biggest centres and 

 there are several thousands of them living here and in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Though most of them are illiterate, they have a strong 

 caste Panchayat with a hereditary headman for the whole district 

 who is also the spiritual preceptor. " His duties are to frame rules 

 in regard to caste matters, to see if the people conform to them or 

 not, and to impose penalties on those who infringe them." The 

 men catch fish and their women dispose of them either in the raw 

 condition by taking them to the neighbouring villages or when the 

 catches were large, they used to cure them with salt-earth. When 

 the collection of salt-earth was prohibited they were obliged to cure 

 fish at the fish-curing yards, but their caste Panchayat objected to 

 their women-folk resorting to fish-curing yards for the reason that 

 there were all sorts of men working there and they did not think it safe 

 to allow their women to work alongside of a mixed crowd of people. 

 This prohibition is still in force, with the result that fisherwomen 

 though they gut and clean fish outside the yard, never enter it, and 

 are therefore deprived of the wages which they could otherwise earn 

 by the salting and drying operations which are carried on inside 

 the yard. In April 191 5 there were 71 ticket-holders of whom only 

 six belonged to the fisher community, and these had also to engage 

 coolies of other castes to carry on curing operations. The remaining 

 ticket-holders belonged to various non-fisher castes such as Brah- 

 mans, Muhammadans, Christians, Bhunts, Shettis, Billavas, etc., 

 who were attracted to this industry by the large profit it gives as 

 several people have grown rich by it ; these conduct operations 

 through hired labourers who are paid mostly at piece rates. Thus the 

 curing industry is mostly in the hands of non-fisher castes and the 

 vast majority of Mogers have to depend for their maintenance on 

 the earnings of their male members alone who do the catching. The 

 more well-to-do curers and fish merchants advance money to 

 the fishermen who are obliged to give all their catches to them; 

 they have also invested money in Rampani and Maribala boats and 

 nets which are worked by fishermen on the share system ; half of 

 the sale-proceeds of their catches goes to the owner of the boats and 

 nets and the other half to the men. They also control other boats 

 so that the fishermen cannot sell their catches to any other party. 

 Besides the local fishermen the merchants also get down Rampani 

 fishermen from Goa, and Machwa fishermen with drift nets from 

 Ratnagiri and other places in the Bombay Presidency. These 

 remain here and catch fish for three or four months during the 

 fishing season. The Rampani net was introduced about 20 years 

 ago and the first time it was operated the local fishermen raised 

 objections which resulted in a riot. But gradually they themselves 

 took to it and at the present time they have almost given up the old 

 kinds of nets which their forefathers used. The Rampani net is 

 made up of two to three hundred pieces, each costing Rs. 8 to 

 Rs. 10, which are laced together at the time of the operation, and 

 requires 50 to 60 men to work it. The fishermen therefore work it on 

 a co-operative basis, i.e., each man brings three or four pieces and 

 also contributes his bodily labour. Similarly the Maribala or Vai- 

 bala which is the same as the Paithuvala of Malabar, is of recent 



