Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/252

KAPU is still pointed under a tamarind tree beneath which arbitration took place. For the assistance rendered by the bull on this occasion, the Māragalas will not use the wood of the tamarind tree, or of the vela tree, to which the bull was tied, either for fuel or for house-building. The Kāppiliyans have recently (1906) raised Rs. 11,000 by taxing all members of the caste in the Periyakulam tāluk for three years, and have spent this sum in building roomy masonry quarters at Kambam for the sacred herd. Their chief grievance at present is that the same grazing fees are levied on their animals as on mere ordinary cattle, which, they urge, is equivalent to treating gods as equals of men. In the settlement of caste affairs, oaths are taken within the enclosure for the sacred herd. "Local tradition at Kambam (where a large proportion of the people are Kāppiliyans) says that the Anuppans, another Canarese caste, were in great strength here in olden days, and that quarrels arose between the two bodies, in the course of which the chief of the Kāppiliyans, Rāmachcha Kavundan, was killed. With his dying breath he cursed the Anuppans, and thenceforth they never prospered, and now not one of them is left in the town. A fig tree to the east of the village is shown as marking the place where Rāmachcha's body was burned; near it is the tank, the Rāmachchankulam; and under the bank of this is his math, where his ashes were deposited." *  '''Kāpu. —''' The Kāpus or Reddis are the largest caste in the Madras Presidency, numbering more than two millions, and are the great caste of cultivators, farmers, and squireens in the Telugu country. In the Gazetteer of Anantapur they are described as being the great 