Kachera
1. Origin of the caste.
Kachera,[1] Kachāra (from kānch, glass).—The functional caste of makers of glass bangles. The Kacheras numbered 2800 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, of whom 1800 were found in the Jubbulpore District. The caste say that in former times glass bangles were made only by Turk or Muhammadan Kacheras. The present name of Turkāri is probably derived from Turk. But when Gauri Pārvati was to be married to Mahādeo, she refused to wear the bangles made by a Turkāri. So Mahādeo constructed a vedi or furnace, and from this sprang the first Hindu Kachera, who was employed to make bangles for Pārvati. A later variant of the legend, having a sufficiently obvious deduction, is that Mahādeo did not create a man, but caught hold of a Kshatriya who happened to be present and ordered him to make the bangles. His descendants followed the new profession and thus came to be known as Kacheras. It is a possible conclusion from the story that the art of making glass bangles was introduced by the Muhammadans and, as suggested in the article on Lakhera, it may be the case that Hindu women formerly wore ornaments made of lac.
2. Exogamous groups.
The exogamous sections of the Kacheras show that the caste is of very mixed origin. Several of them are named after other castes, as Bharia (forest tribe), Gadaria (shepherd), Sunār, Naua (Nai), Thakurel (Thākur or Rājpūt), Kachhwāha and Chauhān (septs of Rājpūts), and Kuria or Kori (weaver), and indicate that members of these castes took to the profession of bangle-making and became Kacheras. It may be surmised that, in the first instance perhaps, when the objection to using the product of the Muhammadan workman arose, if the theory of the prior use of lac bangles be correct, members of different castes took to supplying bangles for their own community, and from these in the course of time the Kachera caste was developed. Other names of sections worth mentioning are Jharrāha, one who frets or worries; Kharrāha, a choleric person; Dukesha, one who carries a begging-bowl; Thuthel, a maimed man, and Khajha, one suffering from the itch.