Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Kūrmapu

by Edgar Thurston

Kūrmapu.— "The Kurmapuvāllu are women, in the Vizagapatam district, who have not entered into matrimony, but earn money by prostitution, and acting as dancers at feasts. They are so called from the fact that they were originally dancing-girls attached to the temple of Srī Kūrmam, a place of pilgrimage in Vizagapatam.* ^[1]

1. * Madras Census Report, 1901.