Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/120

KAMMA women are kept in strict gōsha. They consider it beneath them to spin thread, or to do other work. A sub-division of this caste lives in Pullalcheruvu, whose families, also gōsha, work at the spindles, like other women of the country. Another class of indoor Kammas resides about Owk. They are apparently descendants of the Kammas, who followed the Naiks from Guntur to Gandikota in the sixteenth century. They are now reduced, and the females work, like Kāpus, in the field. The Gampas are distinguished from the indoor Kammas by their women wearing the cloth over the right, instead of the left shoulder."

As with other Telugu castes, there are, among the Kammas, a number of exogamous septs or intiēeru, of which the following are examples: —

The Kammas also have gōtras such as Chittipoola, Kurunollu, Kulakala, Uppāla, Cheruku (sugar-cane), Vallotla, and Yenamalla. When matters affecting the community have to be decided, a council of the leading members thereof assembles. But, in some places, there is a permanent headman, called Mannemantri or Chaudri. The Kammas will work as coolies in the fields, but will, on no account, engage themselves as domestic servants. "They are," the Rev. J. Cain writes,* " as a rule a fine well-built class of cultivators, very proud and