Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/128

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KUMPANI
118

name kumbidu chatti is applied to a pot, in which fire is always kept burning. Such a pot is used for obtaining fire for domestic purposes, and by old people, to keep themselves warm in cold weather.

Kumpani.— Returned by some Kurubas at the Census, 1901. The name refers to the East India Company, which was known as Kumpani Jāhan (or John Company).

Kūnapilli.— A synonym of Padigarājulu, a class of mendicants, who beg from Padma Sālēs.

Kunbi.— Recorded, at times of Census, as a Bombay cultivating caste. (See Bombay Gazetteer, XVIII, Part I, 284.) It is also a sub-division of Marāthis, generally agriculturists, in the Sandūr State.

Kunchēti. — A sub-division of Kāpu.

Kunchigar.— The Kunchigars, Kunchitigas, or Kunchiliyans, are a class of cultivators in the Salem district, who speak Canarese, and have migrated southward to the Tamil country. Their tradition concerning their origin is that "a certain Nawāb, who lived north of the Tungabadra river, sent a peon (orderly) to search for ghī (clarified butter), twelve years old. In his travels south of the river, the peon met a lovely maid drawing water, who supplied his want. Struck by her beauty, he watched her bathing place, and stole one hair which fell from her head in bathing, which he took to the Nawāb. The latter conceived the idea of marrying the girl, and sent an embassy, which was so far successful that the girl and her family came to his residence, and erected a marriage pandal (booth). Subsequently they repented, and, thinking that the marriage would be a mésalliance (the Nawāb was probably a Muhammadan), fled in the night, leaving a dog in the pandal. In their flight they came to the Tungabadra, which was in full flood, and,