[Social customs.] 6. They do not eat the turnip (shalgham). They will not touch a Dhobi, Bhangi, Chamâr, or Kori. They eat the flesh of goats, sheep, hare, deer, water-birds, and fish; they will not eat the monkey, cow, pig, fowl, crocodile, snake, lizard, rat, or other vermin. Intoxicating liquors are forbidden; bhang and gânja are used, but excess is reprobated. [Occupation.] 7. Their occupation is agriculture; they do not hold land as zamîndârs but as tenants, and some work as field labourers. They practice no handicraft. DISTRIBUTION OF THE BHOTIYAS ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1891. ==============+======== District. | Number. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~ Muzaffarnagar | 1 Gorakhpur | 6 Kumâun | 7,270 Garhwâl | 174 Tarâi | 6 +~~~~~~~~ Total | 7,457 ==============+======== Bhuînhâr—(Sanskrit Bhûmi, “land,” kâra, “maker”).—An important tribe of landowners and agriculturists in the Eastern Districts. They are also known as Bâbhan, Zamîndâr Brâhman, Grihasth Brâhman, or Pachhima, or “Western” Brâhmans. They must, of course, be very carefully distinguished from the Dravidian Bhuînhâr or Bhuiyâr tribe, of whom some account has been given in a separate article. [Origin of tribe.] 2. One story of their origin is that when Parasurâma destroyed the Kshatriya race, he set up in their place the descendants of Brâhmans, who, after a time, having abandoned their priestly functions, took to land-owning. Another story tells that a King of Ajudhya being childless, sought to obtain an heir by the sacrifice of a Brâhman, and purchased the son of the Rishi Jamadagni for that purpose. The uncle of the child, the sage Viswamitra, procured a child for the Râja, and the sacrifice was rendered unnecessary; but the Brâhman boy having been sold was considered degraded, and was forced to take to agriculture, and became the ancestor of the Bhuînhârs. This, as Mr. Risley says, is the famous legend of Sunahsephas in another form. [68] “A third legend, perhaps the best known of all, traces the Bâbhans back to a sacrifice offered by Jarasandha, King of Magadha, at which a very large number of Brâhmans, some say a lakh and-a-quarter, were required to be present. Jarasandha’s Dîwân, a Kâyasth of the Amisht or Karan sub-caste, did his best to meet the demand, but was driven to eke out the local supply by distributing sacred threads among members of the lower castes, and palming them off on the King as genuine Brâhmans. Jarasandha’s suspicions being roused by the odd appearance of some of the guests, the Dîwân was compelled to guarantee their respectability by eating the food which they had cooked, while the Brâhmans thus manufactured had to set up a caste of their own, the name of which (Bâbhan or Bâhman) is popularly supposed to mean a sham Brâhman, just as in some districts an inferior Râjput is called a Râwat, the