Kapewar, [330] Munurwar.--A great cultivating caste of the Telugu
country, where they are known as Kapu or Reddi, and correspond to
the Kurmi in Hindustan and the Kunbi in the Maratha Districts. In the
Central Provinces about 18,000 persons of the caste were enumerated in
the Chanda District and Berar in 1911. The term Kapu means a watchman,
and Reddi is considered to be a corruption of Rathor or Rashtrakuta,
meaning a king, or more properly the headman of a village. Kapewar
is simply the plural form of Kapu, and Munurwar, in reality the name
of a subcaste of Kapewars, is used as a synonym for the main caste
in Chanda. They are divided into various occupational subcastes,
as the Upparwars or earth-diggers, from uppar, earth; the Gone, who
make gonas or hemp gunny-bags; the Elmas, who are household servants;
the Gollewars, who sell milk; and the Gamadis or masons. The Kunte or
lame Kapewars, the lowest group, say that their ancestor was born lame;
they are also called Bhiksha Kunte or lame beggars and serve as the
bards of the caste besides begging from them. They are considered to
be of illegitimate origin. No detailed account of the caste need be
given here, but one or two interesting customs reported from Chanda
may be noted. Girls must be married before they are ten years old,
and in default of this the parents are temporarily put out of caste
and have to pay a penalty for readmission. But if they take the girl
to some sacred place on the Godavari river and marry her there the
penalty is avoided. Contrary to the usual custom the bride goes to the
bridegroom's house to be married. On the fourth night of the marriage
ceremony the bridegroom takes with him all the parts of a plough as
if he was going out to the field, and walks up the marriage-shed
to the further end followed by the bride, who carries on her head
some cooked food tied up in a cloth. The skirts of the couple are
knotted together. On reaching the end of the shed the bridegroom
makes five drills in the ground with a bullock-goad and sows cotton
and juari seeds mixed together. Then the cooked food is eaten by all
who are present, the bridal couple commencing first, and the seed
is irrigated by washing their hands over it. This performance is a
symbolical portrayal of the future life of the couple, which will be
spent in cultivation. In Chanda a number of Kapewars are stone-masons,
and are considered the most proficient workers at this trade in the
locality. Major Lucie Smith, the author of the Chanda Settlement Report
of 1869, thought that the ancestors of the caste had been originally
brought to Chanda to build the fine walls with ramparts and bastions
which stretch for a length of six or seven miles round the town. The
caste are sometimes known as Telugu Kunbis. Men may be distinguished
by the single dot which is always tattooed on the forehead during
their infancy. Men of the Gowari caste have a similar mark.