Garpagari. [17]--A caste of village menials whose function it is to
avert hailstorms from the crops. They are found principally in the
Maratha Districts of the Nagpur country and Berar, and numbered 9000
persons in 1911. The name is derived from the Marathi gar, hail. The
Garpagaris are really Naths or Jogis who have taken to this calling and
become a separate caste. They wear clothes coloured with red ochre,
and a garland of rudraksha beads, and bury their dead in a sitting
posture. According to their tradition the first Garpagari was one
Raut, a Jogi, who accompanied a Kunbi malguzar on a visit to Benares,
and while there he prophesied that on a certain day all the crops
of their village would be destroyed by a hailstorm. The Kunbi then
besought him to save the crops if he could, and he answered that by
his magic he could draw off the hail from the rest of the village
and concentrate it in his own field, and he agreed to do this if the
cultivators would recompense him for his loss. When the two came home
to their village they found that there had been a severe hailstorm,
but it had all fallen in the Jogi's field. His loss was made good to
him and he adopted this calling as a profession, becoming the first
Garpagari, and being paid by contributions from the proprietor and
tenants. There are no subcastes except that the Kharchi Garpagari
are a bastard group, with whom the others refuse to intermarry.