Kaikari, Kaikadi (also called Bargandi by outsiders). [249]--A
disreputable wandering tribe, whose ostensible profession is to
make baskets. They are found in Nimar and the Maratha Districts,
and number some 2000 persons in the Central Provinces. The Kaikaris
here, as elsewhere, claim to have come from Telingana or the Deccan,
but there is no caste of this name in the Madras Presidency. They may
not improbably be the caste there known as Korva or Yerukala, whose
occupations are similar. Mr. Kitts [250] has stated that the Kaikaris
are known as Koravars in Arcot and as Korvas in the Carnatic. The
Kaikaris speak a gipsy language, which according to the specimen given
by Hislop [251] contains Tamil and Telugu words. One derivation of
Kaikari is from the Tamil kai, hand, and kude, basket, and if this
is correct it is in favour of their identification with the Korvas,
who always carry their tattooing and other implements in a basket in
the hand. [252] The Kaikaris of the Central Provinces say that their
original ancestor was one Kanoba Ramjan who handed a twig to his sons
and told them to earn their livelihood by it. Since then they have
subsisted by making baskets from the stalks of the cotton-plant, the
leaves of the date-palm and grass. They themselves derive their name
from Kai, standing for Kanoba Ramjan and kadi, a twig, an etymology
which may be dismissed with that given in the Berar Census Report [253]
that they are the remnants of the Kaikeyas, who before the Christian
era dwelt north of the Jalandhar Doab. Two subcastes exist in Nimar,
the Marathas and the Phirasti or wandering Kaikaris, the former no
doubt representing recruits from Maratha castes, not improbably from
the Kunbis. The Maratha Kaikaris look down on the Phirastis as the
latter take cooked food from a number of castes including the Telis,
while the Marathas refuse to do this. In the Nagpur country there
are several divisions which profess to be endogamous, as the Kamathis
or those selling toys made of palm-leaves, the Bhamtis or those who
steal from bazars, the Kunbis or cultivators, the Tokriwalas or makers
and sellers of baskets and the Boriwalas or those who carry bricks,
gravel and stone. Kunbi and Bhamti are the names of other castes,
and Kamathi is a general term applied in the Maratha country to
Telugu immigrants; the names thus show that the Kaikaris, like other
vagrant groups, are largely recruited from persons expelled from
their own caste for social offences. These groups cannot really be
endogamous as yet, but as in the case of several other wandering
tribes they probably have a tendency to become so. In Berar [254]
an entirely different set of 12 1/2 subcastes is recorded, several
of which are territorial, and two, the Pungis or blowers of gourds,
and the Wajantris or village musicians, are occupational. In Nimar
as in Khandesh [255] the Kaikaris have only two exogamous clans,
Jadon and Gaikwar, who must marry with each other. In the southern
Districts there are a number of exogamous divisions, as Jadon, Mane,
Kumre, Jeshti, Kade, Dane and others. Jadon is a well-known Rajput
sept, and the Kaikaris do not explain how they came by the name, but
claim to have fought as soldiers under several kings, during which
occasions the name may have been adopted from some Rajput leader in
accordance with the common practice of imitation. Mane and Gaikwar are
family names of the Maratha caste. The names and varied nomenclature of
the subdivisions show that the Kaikaris, as at present constituted,
are a very mixed caste, though they may not improbably have been
originally connected with the Korvas of Madras.