possible only in an enquiry about those people, an appre-
ciable proportion of whom is literate and intelligent and
can give reliable estimates. In view of the illiteracy of the
majority in this village, we have adopted the second
method for a large number of families and the first only
for a few. We, however, propose to enumerate the diffi-
culties which obstructed us in adopting the former method
for the benefit of a future investigator dealing with a
similar group of people.
The method of sampling : So far as the first group
consisting of the Kaliparaj was concerned, the following
were some of the principal difficulties :
(i) The Kaliparaj are in the habit of purchasing their
sundries from day to day and, their food-grains^1 frequent-
ly during the year. They neither keep accounts of
these purchases as most of them are illiterate, nor
do they care to remember how much they spend on
them, (ii) The majority of them do not know the quan-
tity of corn their families consumes per annum. Some
of them told us that a man required about one 'hara* or 21
maunds of corn per year. But it is necessary to note,
that one of the most patent facts of their life is that many
of the small cultivators and labourers in their castes, in-
dulge in feasts during winter and early summer when
there is plenty, and consequently have to underfeed them-
selves during the latter part of the year, or are compelled
to live on corn borrowed from the sowkar or their rela-
tives, with a promise to return about twice as much. Care-
ful observation convinced us of this lamentable fact and
hence in calculating the net income of such families
we had to take this dismal fact of annual corn-borrowing
and repayment irfto account, (iii) Only a microscopic
minority of these people are intelligent enough to talk
reasonably with any one on this subject. The extent of
their ignorance may be gauged when we meet with instan-
ces of heads of some of the Kaliparaj families who cannot
1 The Ujaliparaj purchase the food-grains for the year during the sea-
son.