History on Map
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About Bhatia's
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Origins
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Kutch & India
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About Bhatia's |
A voyage round the world: including an embassy to Muscat and Siam in 1835 ...
By William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger1838 Zanzibar......1835 "Under the shed of the custom house were several fine-looking men, tall and straight, and of a lighter complexion and smoother skin than the Arabs. Their costume is highly picturesque. The head is shaved back to the crown, and the hair is permitted to grow long behind, but the tress is folded on top of the head and concealed beneath a red or white turban, made high, somewhat in the shape of a bishop's mitre; it is laid in fine transverse plaits, instead of being twisted like that of the Arab, and in the centre of the lower edge is a small knot, the form of which distinguishes the sect to which the wearer may belong. The dress consists of a white robe, which sets close about the neck like a collarless shiit, and is gathered about the hips in such wise, by the help of a girdle, as to leave the lower part of the thigh and leg bare. Behind the limb, it is folded from opposite sides, so as to form an acute angle, the point being uppermost. The sleeves are straight and large. The feet are protected by sharp-toed slippers, the points of which turn up over the top of the foot. Such is the attire of the Banyans" ... Page 35 Missionary Register, Volume 33
By Church Missionary Society 1845 Zanzibar "The Banians, and other East Indians, are estimated at some 600 or 700 individuals. The Banians are the chief traders; and Europeans, as well as Americans, prefer dealing with them to dealing with the Natives and Arabs, in whom they cannot place such confidence. They leave their families in India, as do all the Banians whom I have met in the Red Sea and Southern Arabia. They do not shed any blood, and abstain from all intoxicating liquors. They live chiefly on milk, butter, vegetables, and rice. It appears that the Imaum himself places more confidence in them than in his own subjects, for Banians are the customs officers in almost every place of notoriety on this coast." Page 104 THE CHURCH MISSIONARY INTELIGENCER 1873 Zanzibar
The Bhattias are probably the most important by wealth and influence at Zanzibar, and with the Banians proper, or Lohannas, who are comparatively few in nnmbers, form the Hindoo portion of the Indian commnnity. The Bhattias are one of the very ancient, skilful, and important sub- divisions of the Hindoo commercial castes, but from being a comparatively small caste, and more addicted to foreign than domestic commerce, they are not so well known to us in India as many castes of less importance, except in Bombay itself, and in Guzerat, Cutch, and Kattywar, where their red turbans, often with a peak in front, strike the stranger as differing from the ordinary head- dress of the Hindoos..... Page 337 |
British Library
Full-length standing carte-de-visite portrait of a bhattia or moneylender, one of a series of portrait studies of ethnic types and occupations taken by Bourne and Shepherd in the early 1870s. 
British Library
This studio portrait of a man of the Bhatia caste, Mumbai was taken by Hurrichund Chintamon and shown at the 1867 Paris Exhibition. 
British Library
Full-length portrait of three seated Shenoy Bhatias in Mumbai, posed against a painted backdrop, taken by Hurrichund Chintamon c. 1867. 
British Library
Photograph of turban folders at work in India, taken by Shivashanker Narayen in c. 1873, from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections. This image, of a group of workers folding turbans on wooden model heads, was probably shown at the Vienna Universal Exhibition of the same year. 
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