Deaths and cremations of Indian Hawkers in the Southern Riverina and North-Eastern Victoria until 1952

Indian hawkers serviced the rural and more remote areas, selling drapery, haberdashery and sundry goods that could not readily be obtained outside towns that functioned as rural service centres. This study is the first systematic survey of burials and cremations of Indian hawkers in any geographical context in Australia. Its geographical coverage is the Southern Riverina and North- Eastern Victoria. The temporal end point of the coverage of this document has been arbitrarily set to 1952, the year the last major figure of the Indian hawker community died. The emphasis of this study is on the Punjabi males that engaged in hawking, market gardening (and later also farming) as well as rural labour. Omitted in this compilation are their wives, inasmuch as they were Australian women as well as their Australian-born children.