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Art. XVIII.—An old Kumaunī Satire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The three great administrators of Kumaon were Mr. Traill (1815–1835), Mr. Batten (1848–1856), and Captain (afterwards Major-General Sir Henry) Ramsay, all of whom are remembered with affection by their whilom subjects. There were numerous short settlements of Kumaon, the first being in 1815–16, the second in 1817, and the third (for three years) in 1818. The fifth settlement (for five years) took place in 1823, and was subsequently extended for another five. In 1831 the Board of Revenue at Allahabad obtained jurisdiction over revenue matters in Kumaon. About the year 1837 proposals were made for a settlement of twenty years, which the landholders appear to have been unwilling to accept on account of its length. It was ultimately carried out in 1842–6 (ninth settlement).
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References
page 478 note 1 Baṭī is a postposition of the ablative, and is the same as the Naipālī bāṭō. I may note with regard to phiraṅgi, ‘ Englishman,’ that the word is also used in Kumaon to mean ‘ changeable in mood.’ The use of the word in this sense illustrates the feeling of a native that he never knows where he is in dealing with a European. One moment he is all smiles and the next in a fury.
page 478 note 2 The genitive postposition is kō, fem. kī, obl. kā. It is the same in Mēwārī. The plural termination of nouns in ō (equivalent to Hindī ā) is ā (equivalent to Hindī ē). Hence we have bōjā (note the disaspiration of the usual jh), ‘ loads’; bāṛā, ‘ great’ (kings). Similarly the oblique form ends in ā, as in pitalā kō, ‘ of brass’; cēlā kā hātā, ‘ by the hand of the son’; khasam kā khōrā m 
, ‘ on the head of the husband.’
page 478 note 3 Lāṭ, a corruption of ‘Lord,’ is the usual word for a Lieutenant-Governor. Gavarnal is a corruption of ‘ Governor,’ i.e. Viceroy.
page 478 note 4 Luṭaṇ is the infinitive: suṇi, or huṇi, is a postposition meaning ‘ for.’ In Gaṛhwālī it is saṇi. It means literally ‘ having heard.’ Compare the Naipālī dēkhi, ‘ having seen,’ equivalent to the Hindī sē.
page 478 note 5 Byachi = Hindi b ch, ‘ having sold.’ The representation of ē by ya is noteworthy. In Eastern India ya is the regular way of writing the sound of short e. Thus byakti, pronounced bekti, ‘ a person.’ The allusion is to the settlement proceedings. If a person objected to the settlement of the land, he had to write a deed of relinquishment. The preparation of this cost money, for which the proprietor had, so the poet says, to sell his house and garden. Istab is a corruption of istīfā.
page 478 note 6 The brass badge worn by process peons who served notices on defaulters. We should expect pitalā kā instead of pitalā ko.
page 478 note 7 Jāḷ and Dhaulāṛ are two villages in Paṭtī Bōrai Rau of Almora. They are inhabited by low-caste Brāhmaṇs, who are despised by the higher septs such as the Pãṛais, to which the author belonged. Some of these men were employed by Mr. Traill.
page 478 note 8 Kai, ‘anyone’; nhāti, ‘is not’; compare nhaiti in verse 8. Phām is For fahm.
page 478 note 9 Here we have the typical Kumaunī future in l, which also occurs in Mārwārī, and sometimes also in Mēwārī. Disrespect to parents is one of the signs of the Kali-yuga or iron age.
page 479 note 1 Hauśiyā is apparently a corruption of ḥawāshī, and is the equivalent of the Urdū shauqīn. Yārō is ‘ O friends.’ Hence the compound means literally ‘my loving friends,’ but is commonly used in addressing a gathering of rustics, such as those to whom Kṛṣṇā Pṛai recited, and has lost its original meaning.
page 479 note 2 Literally, ‘by giving’: compare hai-bēr, ‘from,’ in the next line; also bwē bēr, ‘ by sowing,’ in verse 12.
page 479 note 3 The Ghugatiyā festival is celebrated in Kumaon on the Makara Saṅkrānti or day on which the sun enters Capricornus on its return from the south. Small images of pigeons (ghugtā) are made of flour and fried in ghī or oil. They are then strung as necklaces and placed round the necks of children on this day. On this festival all the members of a family feast together. The poet says that times will be so out of joint that on this day husband and wife will be separated.
page 479 note 4 A kind of pigeon; it is an omen of evil to hear its song. Hence the verse means that a calamity has taken place.
page 479 note 5 Literally, To (kaṇi) the wife loathing of the husband is come.
page 479 note 6 Padhān for pradhān. The ch is the verb substantive, which is attached enclitically to the preceding word. The two are pronounced jōich.
page 479 note 7 The statement about prosperity is, of course, sarcastic. A nāḷi is a grain-measure weighing about two sērs or four pounds. Bhain is the plural masculine of bhayō. The cry of the discontented that the ruler is responsible for famines is an old one. Dr. Fraser's Golden Bough gives numerous instances. Only the other day an Irish newspaper spoke of her late Most Gracious Majesty as a ‘ Famine-Queen.’ A certain school of Indian politicians holds the present Government responsible for the famine which has lately devastated a wide area in that country. The leaders, I need hardly say, take a nineteenth-century view of the case, and lay the blame on the systems of Land Revenue Administration, but this is not the shape which the contention has assumed when it has filtered down to the masses. Taking the brighter side of the same superstition, the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, has been hailed by them as having brought rain with him in his recent tour in Western and Southern India, and, even as a modest District Collector, I myself have been credited with a heavy fall of rain which came to Gayā on the day of my return there from furlough.
page 479 note 8 Here we have an enclitic l used, instead of lē, as the sign of the case of the agent. This is the only instance of this case in the poem.