Rangāri

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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.

Rangāri

The Rangāris are summed up, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, as being “a caste of dyers and tailors found in almost all the Telugu districts. They are of Marātha origin, and still speak that language. They worship the goddess Ambābhavāni. The dead are either burned or buried. Their title is Rao.”

In an account of the Rangāris of the North Arcot district, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes that “Rangāri is a caste of dyers, chiefly found in Wālājāpet. They claim to be Kshatriyas, who accompanied Rāma in his conquest of Ceylon, from which fact one of their names, Langāri (lanka, the island, i.e., Ceylon), is said to be derived. Rāma, for some reason or other, became incensed against, and persecuted them. Most were destroyed, but a respectable Kshatriya lady saved her two sons by taking off their sacred threads and causing one to pretend that he was a tailor sewing, and the other that he was a dyer, colouring his thread with the red betel nut and leaf, which she hurriedly supplied out of her mouth. The boys became the progenitors of the caste, the members of which now wear the thread. The descendants of the one brother are tailors, and of the other, the most numerous, dyers. Their chief feasts are the Dassara and Kāman, the former celebrated in honour of the goddess Tuljabhavani and the latter of Manmada, the Indian Cupid, fabled to have been destroyed by the flame of Siva’s third eye. During the Kāman feast, fires of combustible materials are lighted, round which the votaries gather, and, beating their mouths, exclaim ‘laba, laba’, lamenting the death of Cupid. In this feast Rājputs, Mahrāttas, Bondilis, and Guzerātis also join.

The Rangāris speak Marāthi, which they write in the northern character, and name Poona and Sholāpur as the places in which they originally resided. In appearance they do not at all resemble the other claimants to Kshatriya descent, the Rāzus and Rājputs, for they are poorly developed and by no means handsome. Widow remarriage is permitted where children have not been born, but remarried widows are prohibited from taking part in religious processions, which seems a sign that the concession has been reluctantly permitted. In most of their customs they differ but little from the Rāzus, eating meat and drinking spirits, but not keeping their women gosha.” All the Rangāris examined by me at Adoni in the Bellary district were tailors. Like other Marātha classes they had a high cephalic index (av. 79; max. 92), and it was noticeable that the breadth of the head exceeded 15 cm. in nine out of thirty individuals. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Bahusāgara, Malla or Mulla, and Nāmdēv are given as synonyms, and Chimpiga (tailor) and Unupulavādu (dyer) as sub-castes of Rangāri.