EAST INDIAN is a. term which has been adopted by all classes in India, to distinguish the descendants of Europeans and native mothers. Eurasian and Indo-Briton were for a short time in use, but have ceased to be employed ; and other names, such as Half-caste, Chatikar, and Chi-chi by the Hindus and Mahomedans of India, are derogatory designations. Chatikar is from Chitta, trousers, and Kar, a person who uses them. The Mahomedans equally wear trousers, but concealed by their long outer gowns. The East Indians are also known as Farangi, a person of Europe, similarly as Hyderabadi, Bengali, and Hindustani are employed for natives of Ilyderabad, Bengal, or Hindustan. The humbler East Indians, if asked their race, reply that they are Walkindez or Oollanday, which is a modification of Hollandais, the name having been brought down through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from the Dutch, who were amongst the first who trafficked with the East. East Indians have, in India, all
the rights and privileges of Europeans, and might advantageously be so styled. They are of French, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, and British descent ; but many of those who claim a Portuguese origin—Xaviers, De CasteIlas, etc.—are merely descendants of converts to Christianity or of house hold slaves of Portuguese officers. East Indians are chiefly employed as clerks in public offices in all the subordinate civil deptutments of the British Indian Government.
East Indian is a commercial term applied to distinguish many vegetable products of that region from others of similar character of other countries. East Indian arrowroot, bird-pepper, copal, ebony, galls, gum, indigo, myrrh, screw tree, tacamahaca.