Pichigunta

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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.

Pichigunta

The name Pichigunta means literally an assembly of beggars, who are described as being, in the Telugu country, a class of mendicants, who are herbalists, and physic people for fever, stomach-ache, and other ailments. They beat the village drums, relate stories and legends, and supply the place of a Herald’s Office, as they have a reputation for being learned in family histories, and manufacture pedigrees and gōtras (house names) for Kāpus, Kammas, Gollas, and others.

The Picchai or Pinchikuntar are described in the Salem Manual as “servants to the Kudiānavars or cultivators—a name commonly assumed by Vellālas and Pallis. The story goes that a certain Vellāla had a hundred and two children, of whom only one was a female. Of the males, one was lame, and his hundred brothers made a rule that one would provide him with one kolagam of grain and one fanam (a coin) each year. They got him married to a Telugu woman of a different caste, and the musicians who attended the ceremony were paid nothing, the brothers alleging that, as the bridegroom was a cripple, the musicians should officiate from charitable motives. The descendants of this married pair, having no caste of their own, became known as Picchi or Pinchikuntars (beggars, or lame). They are treated as kudipinnai (inferior) by Vellālas, and to the present day receive their prescribed miras (fee) from the Vellāla descendants of the hundred brothers, to whom, on marriage and other festivals, they do service by relating the genealogies of such Vellālas as they are acquainted with. Some serve the Vellālas in the fields, and others live by begging.” The caste beggars of the Tottiyans are known as Pichiga-vādu.