purely Hindu customs, are called by Muhammadan names. The Tahsildar of the Sirvel tāluk in the same district states that, prior to the reign of the father of Ghulam Rasul Khān, the dethroned Nawāb of Kurnool, the butcher's profession was solely in the hands of the Marāthas, some of whom were, as stated in the Manual, forcibly circumcised, and became a separate butcher caste, called Sultāni. There are two sections among these Sultāni butchers, viz., Bakra (mutton) and Gai Kasai (beef butcher). Similar stories of forcible conversion to the Muhammadan religion are prevalent in the Bellary district, where the Kasāyis are mostly converted Hindus, who dress in the Hindu style, but possess Muhammadan names with Hindu terminations, e.g., Hussainappa.
In connection with butchers, I may quote the following extract from a petition to the Governor of Madras on the subject of a strike among the Madras butchers in 1907. " We, the residents of Madras, beg respectfully to bring to your Excellency's notice the inconvenience and hardship we are suffering owing to the strike of the butchers in the city. The total failure of the supply of mutton, which is an important item in the diet of non-Brāhmin Hindus, Muhammadans, Indian Christians, Parsis, Eurasians and Europeans, causes a deprivation not merely of something to which people have become accustomed, but of an article of food by which the health of many is sustained, and the want of which is calculated to impair their health, and expose them to diseases, against which they have hitherto successfully contended."
Katorauto. — A name for the offspring of maid servants in the harems of Oriya Zamindars, who are said to claim to be Kshatriyas.
