Kāpewār
Kāpewār,[1] Munurwār.—A great cultivating caste of the Telugu country, where they are known as Kāpu or Reddi, and correspond to the Kurmi in Hindustān and the Kunbi in the Marātha Districts. In the Central Provinces about 18,000 persons of the caste were enumerated in the Chānda District and Berār in 1911. The term Kāpu means a watchman, and Reddi is considered to be a corruption of Rāthor or Rāshtrakūta, meaning a king, or more properly the headman of a village. Kāpewār is simply the plural form of Kāpu, and Munurwār, in reality the name of a subcaste of Kāpewārs, is used as a synonym for the main caste in Chānda. 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 Gollewārs, who sell milk; and the Gamadis or masons. The Kunte or lame Kāpewārs, 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 Chānda 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 Godāvari 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 juāri 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 Chānda a number of Kāpewārs are stone-masons, and are considered the most proficient workers at this trade in the locality. Major Lucie Smith, the author of the Chānda Settlement Report of 1869, thought that the ancestors of the caste had been originally brought to Chānda 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 Gowāri caste have a similar mark.
[1] This article is compiled principally from a note by Mr. Paiku, Inspector of Police, Chānda.