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”Identification of Tools : the Case of the Indian Khurpâ”
Marie-Claude Mahias
To cite this version:
Marie-Claude Mahias. ”Identification of Tools : the Case of the Indian Khurpâ”. Tools and Tillage,
National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 1990, Vol. VI (3), pp. 176-186. �halshs-02427957�
IDENTIFICATION OF TOOLS : THE CASE OF INDIAN KHURPA
1Marie-Claude Mahias
C.N.R.S., Paris
The khurpâ is a very common tool in northern India, found in almost every village house.
Nevertheless it has been little described and still less studied, because its very frequency of occurence renders it invisible to users as well as to observers.
Yet it has no equivalent in other parts of the world, with the exception of the European
"transplantoir" (transplanting trowel) and a few apparently similar tools with short handles, used in limited areas of Africa (Central African Republic, Cameroon), where their mode of use and specific function are not explicit (Seignobos 1984). The Indian khurpâ constitutes a separate category in a recent "Essai d'identification des instruments à bras du travail du sol"
(Sigaut 1984):
« En ce qui concerne les bêches, enfin, il n'y a pas de doute : il existe des 'bêches' une seule main. L'exemple le plus important est le khurpâ du Nord-Ouest de l'Inde, dont la forme évoque celle d'une truelle. On l'utilise accroupi : c'est l'instrument à tout faire (mais surtout les sarclages) le plus répandu partout dans cette région ».
That this small tool hardly known to science, and made by the village smith from scrap iron, be promoted to the rank of a taxon, in a classification with a universal ambition, is but one result of research which would surprise Indian villagers and leave them rather sceptical. Let us therefore give it its rightful place.
Close study shows that this tool does not entirely correspond to the category of spades as opposed to the category of hoes as distinguished by the type of gesture, that is according to whether the tool is pushed or pulled. It also illustrates how insufficient is the criterion of shape
— to say nothing of a morphological analogy — to describe a tool. This is well known by specialists but does not prevent one from spontaneously resorting to it especially when dealing with isolated objects. The analysis must go beyond this empirical perception and set the objects within dynamic processes, taking into account operations and modes of action.
1
I thank Professor S. N. Pawar and Professor M. L. Sharma, both Heads of the Sociology Department, who made
my stay possible at respectively Shivaji University, Kolhapur, and Hisar Agricultural University. My thanks are
also due to F. Sigaut to whom I am indebted for the idea of this study, for his encouragements and criticism, and to
Professor R. Cresswell who revised my English draft.
In the material field as in others, description cannot be just a preliminary phase, independant of analysis : the latter is necessarily part of the former.
M ORPHOLOGY , F UNCTIONS AND M ODES OF A CTION
1. Khurpâ in North-Western India
The data in this first section were collected in Delhi, Hisar and in a Haryana village, during several stays covering a period from November to June. This precision is necessary as research work during the rainy season would possibly turn up other data.
In these areas the khurpa is a small tool, 25 to 40 cm in length (fig. 1 and 2). Its handle (dastâ or bindâ) is a piece of curved wood which allows a good grip for work at ground level without any risk of barking the skin of the back of the hand. It is necessarily used in a squatting position. The iron blade (kamânî) is fastened in the same longitudinal plane as the handle; its end forms the cutting edge. The difference in the width of the blade (6 to 11 cm) characterises two types of khurpâ :
- a narrow blade, for weeding and gardening, - a broad blade, for replanting and grass-collecting.
The relationship of one type of tool to one type of work is only one of emphasis. As villagers often possess only one khurpâ, they make do with what they have.
2. Operations done with the khurpâ 2.1. Weeding
Weeding (nûlâî) is done to preserve soil humidity and nutrients by removing extraneous plants (janglî ghâs); it is an important operation wherever irrigation is necessary. Weeding with a khurpâ is done in kitchen gardens around papaya seedlings, onions, chillies and vegetables sown higgledy-piggledy. The tool is pushed forward horizontally, to uproot weeds, but is used in a vertical plane, pulled towards oneself, to smooth the soil around plants (fig. 3, 4).
But the khurpâ is not the only weeding tool.
Potatoes sown in the open fields are weeded with the kasaulâ hoe (fig. 5) and eventually remaining weeds are removed with a khurpâ. Weeding with a khurpâ results in a cleaner job, but this seems a meagre gain compared with the greater amount of work required, and weeding with a hoe would in the main seem to suffice.
Two varieties of coriander are cultivated : one has thick stalks which may reach 45 cm in
height at the time of the first weeding in February, and so it is done with the kasaulâ hoe. The
other variety, a smaller one, is completely mixed up with weeds reaching the same height, about 15 cm. Weeding is then done with a sickle, whose the point allows the user to scratch the soil and uproot the weeds without touching coriander seedlings, which would be impossible with the khurpâ.
2.2. Maintenance of lawns
Today the most likely places for observing khurpâ are university campuses and flower gardens. Gardeners regularly maintain lawns, remove weeds, cut short and thin grass
2and trim borders. For this last operation, the khurpâ is held vertically, the blade towards oneself, and the edge is frequently sharpened by grinding it against asphalt or cement curbs. The khurpâ is also used to dig holes in which flowers and nursery bushes are replanted.
Here again a khurpâ is not the only tool used. If the grass is a little higher, « Swords » (talvâr) are used in broad spaces (fig. 6), and sickles along hedges or in angles, where space is too restricted for the sword. Finally a mechanical mower can be used to finish off (fig. 8).
2.3. Vegetable transplantation (khudâî)
It is first necessary to point out that fieldwork was carried out in an area where horticulture is not very developped because it requires much water and man-power, neither of which are readily available in Southern-Haryana.
Many vegetables are transplanted : onions, tomatoes, cabbages, etc. For instance onions are sown in a nursery during the month of asoj, mid-Septembre - mid-October. At the end of January, after two waterings, seedlings reach 15 cm and it is time to transplant them to open fields. Roots are unearthed with the help of the khurpâ, and struck against the back of the blade to remove excess earth. Seedlings are carefully picked out and separated from weeds, and taken to the previously ploughed field. If the soil is too hard for the khurpâ, then a few strokes with the hoe called kassî (fig. 5) opens the soil and loosens the clods of earth, allowing the market gardeners to carry on their work.
2.4. Grass-collecting
Lastly the khurpâ is the tool to cut fodder for donkeys and horses. It could be said that it is
the women-potters' tool, because, as a matter of fact, in North-Indian villages potters are often
the only people to possess donkeys and horses. They use them to carry their materials and finished products and sometimes hire themselves out on building sites to carry materials. Every morning, the potter's wife has to provide fodder for her animals. But whereas other women go for fodder carrying a sickle, she goes with a khurpâ to cut certain short grasses
3which alone are suitable to Equidae (fig. 7).
G EOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE KHURPA
The Voyage en Inde du Comte de Modave 1773-1776, mentions a tool which is neither named nor described, but which can be supposed to be a khurpâ given the shape and the mode of action mentioned. Travelling from Bangâl to Delhi, the Earl approaches Laknau on 19 February and notes :
« C'est un spectacle assez singulier que la terre de l'Indoustan dans la saison où nous étions. De grandes pièces de bled bien garnies et bien vertes séparent de plus grands morceaux de terre qui sans doute au tems des pluies forment de belles prairies, mais qui ne font dans ce moment qu'une campagne aride et pelée dans laquelle les animaux peuvent à peine vivre et mangent plus de terre et d'ordures que d'herbe
On se sert d'une espèce de truelle pour arracher cette herbe, à peu près comme on ratisse les allées de nos jardins
4. Ce mauvais fourrage sans suc et sans substance ne peut pas fournir à la nourriture des bêtes de somme ; le grain même qu'on ne leur épargne pas ne corrige point la mauvaise qualité de ce fourrage. »
Grierson (1885 : 12) mentions it in Bihar and describes it as « a sort of hoe used for loosening the earth round young plants or in weeding". He then says that khurpâ would be the name for the blade.
The Village Survey Monographs of the Census of India which I was able to consult mention a tool with similar form and function, in the southern districts of Kashmir (named ramb), in Panjab, and even in Assam where it is named khurpi.
In Maharashtra, in the Kolhapur district, however, the term khurpe designates a tool in the form of a straight-handled sickle with a little curved blade with two edges (fig. 9). This tool is used for weeding and maintaining lawns. The point is used to dig and uproot weeds, and the convex edge to scratch the soil.
A tool with the same name (khurpe or khurpi) is to be found in the Satara, Bhir and Jalgaon districts, stretching from north to south Maharashtra. The respective Maharashtra State
2
As a French observer knowing nothing of the art of Indian lawns, I confess my perplexity at the fervour deployed in shearing thin and sparse grass until the very soil is bare.
3
The village women potter knew the name of several of these plants but all my efforts to have them identified at
the Botany Department, Hisar University, remained vain.
Gazetteers designate it as a "weeding hook" to remove the weeds in the crop line that escape the hoe ; that is to say for a second weeding, more carefully done than the first between the lines with a hoe. Unfortunately, they do not indicate any shape. If the expression "weeding hook" would seem to suit a tool similar to the one observed in Kolhapur, the mention, in the Bhir district, of a very small blade, about 5x8 cm, "also used for stirring the soil", would bring the latter closer to the north-Indian khurpâ.
On the other hand, there is no doubt about Gujarat, as the Agricultural Tools Research Centre of Bardoli improved existing tools with the assistance of local artisans. The khurpî there has a curved blade with two edges, and its convex part has been elongated so that its terminal edge is as wide as the wide end of the blade of the north-Indian khurpâ, and its point as sharp as in the Maharashtrian khurpi (fig. 10). Its range of efficiency is therefore extended
5.
These tools, linked under the same vernacular term, with a similar function but a different shape, give grounds for thought. In the cases of Kolhapur and Bardoli, doubt arises from the fact that the shape considered alone is reminiscent of a sickle. Which criterion has to be chosen to classify these tools : name, function or shape? Is one criterion more relevant than others? We will answer this question indirectly by not considering the tool separately but by relating it to sickles of each area and by specifying the respective functions of each tool. In the northern states as well as in Maharashtra, two sickles co-exist : one for sawing cereals, the other for cutting and thinning out the leaves of sugarcane.
functions areas
Weeding and cutting grass
Cutting cereals Cutting sugarcane
North khurpâ darantî/datrî
(dented sickle)
darântî/datrî
South-West khurpe vilâ vilâ
In each local system, differences are clearly defined between tools according to whether they cut grass, cereals or sugarcane. The khurpâ — whatever its shape — has the same place in relation to both types of sickles. It is also this aspect of difference from sickles that defines its essential function of weeding, but its field of action is not always the same : in the North, as we
4 My italics
have seen, the sickle may partly overlap the domain of the khurpâ in weeding; in the South on the contrary, it is the khurpâ that may encroach on the field of the sickle when used for cutting tall grasses and sometimes even cereals.
This reaffirms that morphology is not a sufficient criterion for identifying a tool and that technology is better based on the analysis of functions and modes of action.
As vernacular terms have guided us till now, it must be noted that, in North-Western India, khurpâ designates other instruments including :
- the paddle with which the raw sugar (gur) maker stirs the mass in the wooden plate in which it is cooling down;
- the paddle used by the cook to stir foods in the cooking pan.
The semantic extension of the name of a tool may be a means of access to indigenous concepts. It may indicate a common function — here denoted by the root KHUR — with no reference to any specific shape or context; but this builds too broad a category to be of any help in the definition of each tool. For that purpose, it is better to remain in the same context.
C ONCLUSIONS
◊ Khurpâ is the primary essential tool for horticulturists (market-gardeners or gardeners), and for potter's wives or other donkey breeders.
◊ It may be used horizontally, pushed like a spade, or vertically pulled like a hoe. In the first case, it is held in the right hand but the left hand remains active, in complementary gestures between the tool which uproots and the hand which grasps. In the second case, the blade is turned toward the user.
◊ There is no specific appropriation of the tool either by women or men. It has often been said that to cut grass was female work. That essentially depends on the socio-economic conditions. On lawns, for example, the same operation may be done either by wage-earning gardeners - always men - or by women whose reward is the grass they have cut. Though a little valued activity in the village, it becomes almost respectable when combined with a salary and a uniform.
◊ Khurpâ is related to a number of other tools (hoes, sickles, swords, a mechanical lawnmower) called into use whenever one or several physical or social parameters vary. In the
5
According to F. Buchanan (1807, I : 286, 287, 296), South-India also knows a small hand tool, named wuravary,
used for weeding wheat fields and millets. But, given the lack of more precise data and my ignorance of Dravidian
languages, I can only give the information.
weeding operation, substitution of a kasaulâ hoe for a khurpâ makes the difference between weeding in lines or weeding between plants, in fields or in gardens, according to whether weeds will be used or not, etc. In vegetable transplanting, the kassî hoe is used if the ground is too hard for the khurpâ. This tool is suitable for grass cutting but as soon as the grass is taller, then sickle or ‘sword’ replaces it. On the other hand, the lawnmower is used to cut grass which is already shaved.
We have arrived, therefore, at a most important difference : on the one hand the material object which exists by itself and can be defined by individual morphological traits; on the other hand, the tool, a more abstract category, which can be defined as a relationship between functions and forms, by its place in a set comprising several other tools. Any object situated at the same place can be considered as the same tool. Here again appears the opposition drawn by M. Akrich (1987 : 51) concerning cars, between the material device and the "technical object"
defined as a relation established between this device and all its uses. But far from being limited to industrial, supposedly complex objects, this approach is proving valid and necessary for tools whose conception and manufacture are much simpler.
On this basis, we may set up three steps for identifying tools :
- The morphological description is a first necessary step, but it is quite insufficient
6.It says nothing of functions and modes of action, nor does it allow them to be inferred. Nor is the differenciation based on morphology inevitably pertinent.
- The study of functions and modes of action (what for and how tools are used) constitutes a necessary complement. It replaces tools in the human hand with the gestures which set them working, and operate them; but it does not say anything of a necessary position in the set of tools.
- A tool is also defined by its place in a set of functionally related tools. The comparison of functions indeed shows relationships of complementarity and of substitution, which fix the functional limits of each tool and determine its place in the set of tools under consideration. In a way, like linguists who define a distinctive sign by opposing it to other signs, we can also define a tool as the result of the relationships which unite and oppose it to other tools.
* R EFERENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES
AKRICH, M.
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