2. Subcastes and sections.
The Bhoyars are divided into the Panwāri, Dholewār, Chaurāsia and Daharia subcastes. The Panwārs are the most numerous and the highest, as claiming to be directly descended from Panwār Rājpūts. They sometimes called themselves Jagdeo Panwārs, Jagdeo being the name of the king under whom they served in Dhārānagri. The Dholewārs take their name from Dhola, a place in Mālwa, or from dhol, a drum. They are the lowest subcaste, and some of them keep pigs. It is probable that these subcastes immigrated with the Mālwa Rājas in the fifteenth century, the Dholewārs being the earlier arrivals, and having from the first intermarried with the local Dravidian tribes. The Daharias take their name from Dāhar, the old name of the Jubbulpore country, and may be a relic of the domination of the Chedi kings of Tewar. The name of the Chaurāsias is probably derived from the Chaurāsi or tract of eighty-four villages formerly held by the Betūl Korku family of Chāndu. The last two subdivisions are numerically unimportant. The Bhoyars have over a hundred kuls or exogamous sections. The names of most of these are titular, but some are territorial and a few totemistic. Instances of such names are Onkār (the god Siva), Deshmukh and Chaudhari, headman, Hazāri (a leader of 1000 horse), Gore (fair-coloured), Dongardiya (a lamp on a hill), Pinjāra (a cotton-cleaner), Gādria (a shepherd), Khaparia (a tyler), Khawāsi (a barber), Chiknyā (a sycophant), Kinkar (a slave), Dukhi (penurious), Suplya toplya (a basket and fan maker), Kasai (a butcher), Gohattya (a cow-killer), and Kālebhūt (black devil). Among the territorial sections may be mentioned Sonpūria, from Sonpur, and Pathāria, from the hill country. The name Badnagrya is also really territorial, being derived from the town of Badnāgar, but the members of the section connect it with the bad or banyan tree, the leaves of which they refrain from eating. Two other totemistic gotras are the Bāranga and Baignya, derived from the bārang plant (Kydia calycina) and from the brinjal respectively. Some sections have the names of Rājpūt septs, as Chauhān, Parihār and Panwār. This curiously mixed list of family names appears to indicate that the Bhoyars originate from a small band of Rājpūts who must have settled in the District about the fifteenth century as military colonists, and taken their wives from the people of the country. They may have subsequently been recruited by fresh bands of immigrants who have preserved a slightly higher status. They have abandoned their old high position, and now rank below the ordinary cultivating castes like Kunbis and Kurmis who arrived later; while the caste has probably in times past also been recruited to a considerable extent by the admission of families of outsiders.