FEEDING THE INDIANS
SOME ©F THE PROBLEMS
QUEER RITES
A few of the commissariat complications that crop up in providing food tor the Indian Expeditionary Force are remarked upon by "Anglo-Indian,!' writing in "The Mail." / ,-•'.
Of the composition of the camp I must say nothing, but the'mere catalogue of creeds and castes from which the Indian. .Expeditionary Force is drawn will suggest to anyone who knows the East the most complicated problem of commissariat. ■ The Gurkha, the Rajput, and other Hindus' will eat goat or mutton,, provided- the animal has been.killed in a special and orthodox,way.'The disgust which the strict' Hindu feels- at physical contact with beef is so intense that he will sometimes be ill at the sight of it; the prejudice is so inveterate that Mahometans who are the descendants or Hindu converts cannot reconcile themselves to the taste. Happily the Moslem abomination, does not complicate the question of Army Tations. But the crux is not so much the nature of the meat to be provided as the: manner in which it is killed and cooked. In the case of sheep the Sikh, villager's gorge will rise- when' be sees meat prepared by the Mahomedan butcher, who kills' by-the halal, or throaiMmtting stroke, nist as the Mabpmedan feelsit an outrage that'meat should be hung up for sale that has been killed by the jatka— the stroke at the back .of the neck af-' fected by the Sikhs. In France now a certain amount, of tinned mutton is' eaten willingly by the troops, ;,but the great bulk of commissariat meat must be sent alive to railhead and slain there' in accordance: with /prescribed rites. Hence the herd of sheep and goats in the boulevard. I found, an old, abattoir full of them—goats from all the hills of France, from Corsica and Dauphine and the Ceveimes, from stony Languedoc and Rousilkm on the'Spanishborder, and bearded giants from the Pyrenees, which, standing'on end, might pluck the leaves from tho shisham'like a young camel, a breed which is likely more than anything else to inspire the' Indian with reverence for the virtue of the soil. • '■••'■
lhat the men may, -know ; whether they are eating clean.; or unclean flesh, units are detached to, a point near railhead, where each man, be he Mahometan, Sikh, or Hindu, dispatches hi* beast by his own peculiar sacrificial stroke', marks it as clean, and sends it on to his comrades in the trenches. - No- beef is killed at the front, as the mere proximity of a Mohammedan" slaughter-house might carry pollution to the Hind.ua. For drink the Army rations of the Indian troops .is rum, but the Mohammedan, being debarred by, the Prophet from all fermented liquor ,<■ is given an extra ration of' sugar and'tea. The huqa being too cumbrous an article for service equipment the Indian soldier receives two packets of rig'arettes a week.. Even the transport animals,have their ingrained fads, a' kind of,caste 'fastidiousness. Indian mules and- pountry-breds who might be having tho'time of their lives nose suspiciously our sweet English hay, preferring their own chopped straw,' the drycst of provender. If an .English cavalry rogiment ever finds itself fobbed off with Indian fodder, men. and horses show disgust in their own way. The Gurkha is proverbially an accom-' modating person, and gives his British officer, with whom he''i's"on the friendliest possible terms, as little difficulty as possible. But inßombay when a regiment was ombarking the question arose as to whether they would eat frozen meat. A conclave of officers decided that it would be better to put the case "to the men. The Subauar was called, and, after a little winking, of the eyebrow, said: "I think, Sahib, the regiment will be willing to eat the iced sheep provided one of them, is always present to see the animal frozen to death." ' •
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19150106.2.48
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2351, 6 January 1915, Page 6
Word count
Tapeke kupu
638FEEDING THE INDIANS Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2351, 6 January 1915, Page 6
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.