Page:Gódávari.djvu/133

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OCCUPATIONS AND TRADE.
107

A few stone-carvers are to be found at Rajahmundry, Jégurupádu in the same taluk, Venkatayyapálaiyam in Rámachandrapuram, and Vúbalanka in Amalápuram. They chiefly make images of the gods. The Jégurupádu work is well known in most parts of the district.

Ropes are made from the fibre of the cocoanut and palmyra palms and the sunn hemp and 'jute' (gogu) plants. The coir ropes are mostly made in the central delta, especially at Bendamúrlanka, Ambájipéta and Pérúru. Large amounts of hemp, palmyra and date fibre are also sent to Europe from Cocanada.

Very large quantities of gingelly, castor and cocoanut oils are manufactured. The castor oil is generally made in iron mills in regular factories. There are twelve or thirteen of such factories at Cocanada, four or five at Rajahmundry and Peddápuram, and others at Pithápuram, Tuni and Dowlaishweram. Gingelly oil is made in a factory at Tuni; but every- where else both it and cocoanut oil are made in the ordinary wooden mills. These are much smaller than those of the southern districts, are put up in the back-yards of houses, and are worked by a single bullock which is usually blindfolded to prevent its getting giddy from going round in such a small circle. Cocoanut oil is made in large quantities at Ambájipeta, Bódasakurru, Pérúru and Munjavarapukottu in the Amalápuram taluk. The oilmaking castes are the Telukulas (who correspond to the Vániyans of the south), Kápus and Ídigas. Gingelly oil is commonly used for cooking and oil baths, cocoanut oil for the same purposes (especially in the central delta) and as a hair-oil, and castor oil for lighting. This last is being ousted by kerosine, and considerable quantities of it are exported. Castor and cocoanut cake are used as manures, especially for sugar-cane, and the former is exported to Cochin and Colombo for use on tea and coffee estates. Gingelly cake is given to cattle and is also used in curries. Curry made with it is a favourite dish with both rich and poor and is even offered to the village goddesses.

Coarse leather for the manufacture of country shoes is made by the Mádigas all over the low country. Their method of tanning it is very elementary. The hides and skins are soaked in a solution of chunam to remove the hair, then in clean water for a day, next for ten days in a decoction of the bark of the babul (Acacia arabica) tree, and finally they are stitched into bags, which are filled with babul bark and soaked for a week in water.

In Rajahmundry three tanneries, owned by Labbais from the Tamil country, work in a less primitive fashion. The