4 The Kihnology of India. 
error can only be met by explaining in detail the tribes variously 
known in various localities ; but in respect to the latter, some general 
caution seems necessary. It often happens that the same term is 
applied both to a Tribe or Caste, and to the profession usually exer- 
eised by that caste, and that while in one sense the term is proper 
to the caste, whether exercising the same or any other profession, in 
another sense it is applied to all exercising the profession, whether of 
the same or of any other caste. For instance, in the greater part of the 
Punjaub, the great agricultural tribe is the Jat, and there the words 
‘ Jat’ and ‘ Zemeendar’ have come to be used by the people as 
almost synonymous. A man who is asked of what caste he is, will 
reply ‘a Zemeendar,’ meaning a Jat. And, vice versd, a Punjabee 
will sometimes call a man a Jat, meaning only that he is a Zemeendare 
When I pressed some of the servants of the Maharajah of Cashmere 
regarding the Ethnology of the valley of the Upper Indus and other 
little known parts, I was at first much puzzled by finding them de- 
clare that the great mass of the people there are ‘ Jats,’ but I pre- 
sently discovered that they meant merely Zemeendars or cultivators, 
there being in fact no Jats within the Hills. In the West and South 
too, I believe that the terms ‘Koonbee’ and ‘ Wocal’ are used both 
to designate certain agricultural tribes, and cultivators generally; soe 
that while ‘“ the Wocals are by the Mahommedans called Koonbees,” 
that circumstance gives no assurance that the tribes are the same. 
The term Bunneah or Banian is properly applied to the great trading 
easte, but it also means a trader, and is often so applied. Again in 
India religious denominations are often apphed in a way which con- 
founds them with proper tribal denominations. The character of the 
Hindoo religion is such that it is a pretty safe Ethnological guide, 
converts not being ordinarily received. Mahommedan and other pro- 
selytising religions, on the other hand, are no guide in Ethnology ; on 
the contrary, the Mahommedan Laws of Marriage and Legitimacy are 
such as to tend very much to efface Ethnological demarcations. For 
our purposes therefore, Mahommedan denominations may be entirely 
put aside. But the mere fact, that people are Mahommedans, should 
not deter us from seeking their Tribal denominations in the back 
ground. Many Mahommedan tribes still retain their Hindoo caste 
names, some Hindoo laws, and something of caste exclusiveness, 
