Before edible oil extraction was mechanised, Kashmir had a roaring cottage industry of traditional oil pressers who would use bullocks to convert various seeds and kernels into oil used for cooking, home-illuminating and even cosmetics and soap-making, writes MJ Aslam
Before the modern mechanised methods of edible oil extraction were invented, the oil extraction from seeds and kernels was done traditionally at Tile’Woin Wan (Tile’Woin means oil-presser or oilman, and Wan, means a shop, factory, display or a Karkhana). It was not Kashmir-specific. It was in vogue throughout the subcontinent.
The extracted oil was used for all kinds of culinary purposes; besides it also served the purpose of supplying oil to lamps (Tcha’ing) for lighting as the electricity and kerosene oil had not reached this part of the world.
In Kashmir, the man who manufactures and sells oil is called Tile’Woin. He was an oil-expresser. A grocer who sold oil in addition to other things was also Tile’Woin. Tile’Woin was a profession with which the family was identified. Those not given to oil-pressing were shopkeepers, called Wa’in who usually supplied the complete catalogue of household requirements of rural and urban population. Wa’in means seller or merchant, and it is used with several occupations as a compound noun like Poyi Wa’in, one sells Pashm, etc, depending on the occupation one carries.
Genesis of Identity
The families associated with extracting oil, in the past, got the surname of Telis. Several non-Kashmiri families of Telis in India adopted the surname of Baniya and in Kashmir, some got the surname of Wa’in. Tile’Woin and Teli are interrelated; the same people. Teli is a modified form of Tile’Woin in Kashmir.
Telis were not found in the valley alone. Till the British era, the oil-making Telis were found all over North, Punjab, Frontier, Assam, Ajmeer, Central Province, North West Provinces, Benaras, Hyderabad, Madras, Travancore, and the greatest numbers were in Bengal. Ghanchis of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Sindh were also oil-pressers. There was hardly any village in rural areas of these provinces where, besides other skilled occupations, there was not a Teli.
In the Mughal Era, the ancestors of Telis of the Deccan were sepoys in the army who had adopted the oil manufacturing trade as it was better paying than warfare. They were shopkeepers and cultivators also. The Telis generally flourished in areas where oil-producing crops were abundant. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there were three million.
Kashmir Scene
In Kashmir, Tile’We’in, though poor people, were found everywhere. They were exclusively Muslims. Till the mid-1940s there were sixteen oil mills, Tile’We’in Wan, operating in Srinagar. Two old oil mills operated in Srinagar at Tilwandoori Qalamdanpora and Suretaing Rainawari till yesteryears.
In Kashmir, watermills (Grateh) and oil-pressing units (tile wo’in) were an important cottage industry. In each village there were several “menials” and the oil-presser was the “most independent” among them and “generally in very easy circumstances”. But, with time, most of these edible oils disappeared from the scene. The mustard oil is now mostly used in Kashmiri culinary traditions.
Till the mechanised extraction of oil took over and the Kashmir grocers began importing, dumping and selling cooking oil of big companies from other States, the tastes of the natives changed altogether and hardly there exist now any Tile Wo’in Wan in Kashmir. Certain exceptions exist like one in Namblabal Pampore run by 80-year-old Ghulam Mohammad Wani.
In the absence of any local mechanised plant for oil extraction, the traditional way of oil extraction was inadequate to manage the surging demand for edible oil in Kashmir. Kashmiris use cooking oil in all culinary items and is almost basic to all Kashmiri kitchens. Butter and ghee are not much in vogue in Kashmir kitchens.
Soap Making
In the rest of the world, oil was extracted from a variety of plants, trees, animals, and minerals. Animal fat oils were used in soap and candle (shama) making. Oils also found use in the making of paints, varnishes and medicine. Fish oil had a great medicinal value.
In the not-so-distant Kashmir past, soaps were manufactured by two private families “probably” of Sabun Kocha, Siraj Bazar, Zaina Kadal Srinagar, who had a monopoly over the trade. Two kinds of soaps manufactured by them were named Tile Saban, made of oil, and Safed Saban, made of animal fat. The former was coarser than the latter.
Oil Sources
Kashmir extracted oil from local seeds and kernels (giri). They were: mustard or rapeseed seeds (tilgogul, asur), sesame or sesamum seeds (teil, or til), linseeds (alish), almond kernels (badam goji), walnut kernels (do’in goji) and apricot kernels (cheareh goji). The scented hair oil was manufactured from the linseed stems and it was applied by both males and females on their heads. The oil extracted from sesamum seeds was especially used as a liniment for relieving the pain of joints and muscles of the body.
Tibet, Laddakh and Baltistan were rich in apricot. From the kernels of the stones of apricot, the oil was extracted in Tibet, which was largely exported to Laddakh in the olden days where native Botas also prepared oil from the kernels. The large quantities of dried apricots imported to Kashmir from Laddakh are called Bot e Chire and in the bygone days, oil was expressed from their kernels at Kashmiri oil presses. It was in addition to the oil that was prepared from local produce of apricot. Kashmir was famed for five kinds of local apricots, namely, Tsoki Chire, Madire Chire, Tith Chire, Khas Chire and Gordi’el (Chire).
Walnut Oil
In Kashmir, the natives used linseed oil and mustard oil in cooking vegetables and other foods, while both mustard oil and walnut oil were used for burning lamps for lighting purposes, although they were not considered good for giving good light to lamps. Walnut oil does not burn freely and was mixed with linseed and other oil for illuminating purposes. The rapeseed oil was considered best for eating while linseed oil was best for lighting. The walnut and almond oil were also used for culinary purposes.
In old Kashmir, all mentioned seeds and kernels were mixed up for extraction of large quantities of oil. From Kashmir, a great deal of mixed oil of mustard seeds, linseeds and walnut kernels was exported to Punjab and Leh from where it was sent to Changthan.
Almost the entire Walnut harvest was converted into oil, and only a small portion of kernels was preserved and eaten as food. After harvesting walnuts, ass-loads of walnut kernel were appropriated to oil presses for conversion into oil.
From the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the cultivation of mustard plants grew considerably in Kashmir and the Tilgoglo, the winter Rabi crop, is harvested in spring. The rapeseed oil began to be consumed by the people for its health benefits. Vegetable oils were mostly used by people from the twentieth century onwards, and with that, the use of walnut oil fell considerably.
The oil from walnut kernels was used as the medium for extracting perfumes from scented flowers like Yasmin (Jasmine), Zambak (tuberose or white jasmine), Nargis (Narcissus), Bebiana (chamomile) and Zeba (yellow rose). The petals of the flowers were added to three-fourths of the walnut oil and then, corked up in bottles which were allowed to be exposed to the sunshine for six weeks and when sufficiently impregnated, the perfumes from Kashmir were exported to Tibet and Yarqand. Walnut oil as such was a highly extensive and profitable article of export from the vale in the old golden days.
In Persian, the oil-presser is called Roghun-gar, and the occupation of oil-pressing Rghun-gari, while oil is named Roghun. Once, Iran’s Isfahan city abounded in Asar-Khaneh, the traditional oil-press from the Safvids’ era. The almond oil is called Roghan e Badam and the walnut oil is Roghan e Gardu.
In Kashmiri plain, these are known as Badam til and Do’in til. The almond and walnut trees were abundant in Kashmir till the recent past. Each village- home would have one or more walnut trees in its compound. Kaghzi, Burzil, Bulbul and Wont have been the commonest kinds of walnuts from which the oil was extracted in the past. The Wont gave the most oil among all kinds of walnut fruit. The villagers broke and removed the walnut shells at home and carried their kernels to the oil-presses for extracting oil a part of which was retained for household consumption while the major portion was sold in the bazaars. Walnut kernels were also sold in the bazaars and eaten by the people with salt tea.
The Operations
How the Teli or Tile Wo’in operated the traditional oil mill. The traditional oil mill is comprised of three parts. Tile Kunz was a circular, round-shaped drum, which is the actual oil press. It was made of Chinar wood or apricot wood, ten feet in height. Its solid base of five feet was permanently fixed under the ground, mud-floor, of the Tile-Woin Wan and a five feet deep bowl-shaped Tile Kunz is kept above the floor.
While in other parts of the world, the Kanz, mortar, ordinarily denotes a stone mortar, in Kashmiri oil mill it was, however, always made of the wood permanently fixed in the centre of the room, called Tile Wo’in Wan. The mortar has a wooden enclosure for adding further strength to Tile Wo’in Wan.
The second part of the oil press is ten feet long Y-shaped, scissors-like, wooden bar, the two wings’ “blades” of which are fixed around the enclosed Tile Kunz, while the other wing is yoked with string on the bullock. The wooden bar is locally called Katzch, which rotates around the Tile Kunz. An angled wooden log, acting as a pestle, Mohul, connected with Katzch, is placed in the centre of the Tile Kunz for crushing seed or kernel for oil extraction, while Teli or Tile Wo’in, the driver of the mill, perches up at the end of the rotating wooden beam connected with the mill.
The all-important part of the oil mill is a blindfolded bullock, Tile Wo’in Dand, who lumbers along the mortar in a circular direction till oil is extracted by the oil presser. The purpose of blindfolding the bullock, like a horse-cart, is to avoid the bullock’s disobedience or obstinacy to move (Houd-Karin) to the oil-presser.
Sitting at one end of the wooden bar, the oil presser holds a whip-stick in his left hand for the ox and while pouring seeds or kernel, with his right hand, in the Tile Kunz, the oil presser with typical child-like communication, called bolbashse, with his dear bullock repeatedly says: Siyod Chi Wath, Ti Wath Chi Yahi (straight is thy way, thy way is this!). When he had to stop the bullock, he would pull the rope of tied to it. Unlike Indian oil pressers who operated in open compounds of their homes, Kashmiri Tile Wo’in was always roofed.
Oil Cakes
Kashmiri Tile’ We’in or Telis expressed oil for local consumption, besides keeping a small quantity for personal use. Oil pressers charged a “small amount of oil for their services”. The cakes, layers, and Lokhri, that were left after pressing out oil from seeds and kernels, called Kha’ij, were retained by the oil-presser who would then sell it as cattle feed to the villagers and the milkmen of the city.
The Folklore
Traditional oilman finds mention in every folklore. In Kashmiri folktales too we find stories about them and even very rich idioms have come down to us from the past that deal with the terms of Telis and Tile’ We’in.
Manufacturers and sellers of oil were considered a humble avocation. Thus, there is a famous saying Kahan Raja Bhoj, Kahan Gangu Teli. Among the caste Hindus, they were considered of lower caste neither allowed to touch the feet of the higher castes nor eat food with them. Hence, the proverb says, behold the distance between Raja Bhoj, who was the ruler of the Parmara dynasty of Ujjain and Dhar of Malwa (present-day MP of India) of tenth and eleventh century CE and Ganga, nicknamed Gangu Teli, who was a petty oilman.
Its Kashmiri variant is Yeti Raja Bhoj Tate Gangu Teli, which indicates that someday Gangu Teli, after he had amassed some wealth over the years, might have had an occasion to sit in the court of Raja Bhoj.
There is a related Kashmiri idiom of Tile’ We’in which again depicts the low socio-economic position of oil pressers in the olden days. Wain Chov Sharaab Te Su Gov Sharmande, Tile Wain Chov Kaunz Te Tas Lug madd is the old Kashmiri idiom. It implies that a shopkeeper took a little wine and was ashamed of himself, but, at the other end, there was an oil-presser who drank some Kaunz, (rice-water, vinegar or gruel) and he became intoxicated with arrogance and pride. Its moral and theme are that in olden times, wain was a very respectable profession or job of selling rice, flour, oil, salt, sugar and so on.
Presently, there are provision stores, grocery stores, and other shops dealing with several such items. Wain, shopkeepers also carried out the activities of the barter system during those early days well before the establishment of banking institutions in Kashmir. So, wain or Wani was treated as a very respectable person in society. The idiom clearly shows that some wani in olden times may have taken little wine and when people noticed it, they felt highly ashamed of it.
In other words, a respectable person feels highly ashamed of a very small fault committed by him because to err is human but feeling shame and expressing regret for it is divine and spiritual. Tile Wain, on the other hand, does not seem to be a respectable job as of wain or wani in those days. Just social categorisation and nothing more!
So, the idiom indicates that some oil presser may have drunk some rice water lost his mind, and became boastful of his act. The people may have noticed it but he may not have shown any shame or regret. So, the second limb of the idiom shows that a man of low thinking takes pride in doing some wrong. Here the oil-presser) is becoming intoxicated with pride.
(Author is a historian and columnist)
