| caption: |
objections to being measured by Kauffmann |
| text: |
Today Kauffmann started measuring the people of Wakching. All morning long the verandah was filled with a talking and laughing crowd, mostly consisting of boys and commenting about the current victim on the measuring stool, and about the inexplicable motions and manipulations of the new sahib. Yesterday we had asked the gaonburas to arrange for twenty younger people to be photographed and measured today but this morning they could only convince a few to come as all are busy on their fields and also are going to Totok and other administered villages to buy pigs for the Oulingbu. They say that today they can easily earn 8 annas per day either by working in the fields for rich people or by trading across the border so they were not at all enthusiastic when they had to wait around while one after the other was being measured meticulously. To add to the numbers Kauffmann also measured Shankok and Nieang. I noticed clearly that they did not like this at all. He pays 2 annas per man which is not sufficiently enticing. Especially taking their hand and foot prints preceded by the washing of their feet, seemed very silly to them. |
