Khodūra

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

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.

Khodūra

The name is derived from khodu, bangle. The Khodūras, Mr. Francis writes,133 are “manufacturers of the brass and bell-metal bangles and rings ordinarily worn by the lower class Odiyas. Their headman is called Nahako Sāhu, and under him there are deputies called Dhoyi Nahako and Bēhara. There is a fourth functionary styled Aghopotina, whose peculiar duty is said to be to join in the first meal taken by those who have been excommunicated, and subsequently readmitted into the caste by the caste panchāyat (council). A quaint custom exists, by which honorific titles like Sēnāpati, Mahāpātro, Subuddhi, etc., are sold by the panchāyat to any man of the caste who covets them, and the proceeds sent to Pūri and Pratābpur for the benefit of the temples there.

It is said that the original home of the caste was Orissa, and that it came to Ganjam with Purushōttam Dēva, the Māharāja of Pūri. In its general customs it resembles the Badhōyis.” I am informed that the name of the fourth functionary should be Aghopotiria, or first leaf man, i.e., the man who is served first at a public dinner.