Bepari

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This article is an excerpt from Castes and Tribes of Southern India By Edgar Thurston, C.I.E., Superintendent, Madras Government Museum; Correspondant Étranger, Société d’Anthropologie de Paris; Socio Corrispondante, Societa,Romana di Anthropologia Assisted by K. Rangachari, M.A., of the Madras Government Museum. Government Press, Madras 1909.

Bēpāri.—Bēpāri

is, in the Madras Census Report, described as “a caste allied to the Lambādis. Its members worship a female deity called Banjāra, speak the Bēpāri or Lambādi language, and claim to be Kshatriyas.” Bhonjo, the title of the Rājāh of Gumsūr, was returned as a sub-caste. The Rev. G. Gloyer54 correctly makes the name Boipari synonymous with Brinjāri, and his illustration of a Boipari family represents typical Lambādis or Brinjāris. Bēpāri and Boipari are forms of Vyapāri or Vēpāri, meaning a trader.

The Bēpāris are traders and carriers between the hills and plains in the Vizagapatam Agency tracts. Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao informs me that “they regard themselves as immune from the attacks of tigers, if they take certain precautions. Most of them have to pass through places infested with these beasts, and their favourite method of keeping them off is as follows. As soon as they encamp at a place, they level a square bit of ground, and light fires in the middle of it, round which they pass the night. It is their firm belief that the tiger will not enter the square, from fear lest it should become blind, and eventually be shot. I was once travelling towards Malkangiri from Jeypore, when I fell in with a party of these people encamped in the manner described. At that time, several villages about Malkangiri were being ravaged by a notorious man-eater (tiger).”