A LITTLE KNOWN PROVINCE OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE. 



139 



They were Mills and Eicketts, the Settlement Commissioners, 

 and Kighy the Executive Engineer who built the lighthouse, of 

 whose charge the embankments formed a part. All of them 

 had left Orissa more than twenty years before I heard of them 

 They must have been men of striking personality, as even then 

 numerous stories were current as to their wisdom and affability. 

 'No doubt, it was mainly their accessibility and willingness to 

 listen which my informants counted to them as wisdom, and 

 rightly so, I think. 



In the European sense society can scarcely be said to exist 

 in Orissa. The tributary chiefs and large landowners, who 

 mostly claim to be Eajpoots, take a position of their own, but 

 even then, from a caste point of view, they are inferior to 

 Brahmans, who may be, and often are, beggars in the sense 

 that they subsist entirely on alms. Begging is not looked on 

 as the disreputable occupation it is in Europe. The Uriya, in 

 common with other Hindus, in practice admits his obligation to 

 maintain his kith and kin to the remotest degree of relationship 

 as well as the duty of bestowing some trifling dole on anyone 

 who asks for it sufficiently loudly. Below the Brahmans, the 

 intermediate castes of soldiers {Rajpoois) and physicians 

 (Baidija) are nearly extinct. The writers, locally known as 

 Mahantys, are the most influential section of the community 

 after the Brahmans ; they fill the greater part of the posts in 

 Government offices, and are lawyers and teachers, a few of the 

 more intelligent members of the lower castes have, however,, 

 qualified themselves for these positions and have established a 

 footing. The pure castes, cultivators, milkmen, and others,, 

 from whose hands a Brahman will accept drinking water, 

 follow, and then come the lower castes, fishermen, washermen, 

 and some others ; the despised castes, tanners, scavengers, etc., 

 being at the bottom of the list. Only the pure castes are 

 admitted into the Jaganath temple at Puri, but potters and 

 washermen are allowed to enter the outer court, whilst the 

 despised castes and hill tribes are altogether excluded, as are all 

 Christians, Molianiedans and non-Hindus. There is one thing 

 to be said of all castes of Uriyas, the lowest to some extent 

 being excepted as regards petty theft, they furnish very few 

 criminals, and in this respect Orissa is indeed a happy land. 



In the higher castes women are married in their childhood ; 

 fifty years ago the Malianty girls were not married until they 

 were ten or twelve years of age, but infant marriage, the girl 

 being from three to seven years old, is now the fashion, and if 

 there is delay, it is owing to the difficulty of finding the money 



