Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/190

PARIVARA (parika or muggu), which they carry about with them, as designs for tattooing or to be drawn on the floor on occasions of festival and ceremonial.  Parivāra.——A sub-division of Bant.  Parivāram.— It is noted, in the Census Report, 1891, that "this is a caste, which presents some difficulty. Parivāram means 'an army, a retinue,' and it is alleged that the people of this caste were formerly soldiers. Parivāram is found as a sub-division of Maravan and Agamudaiyan, and the Parivāras of Madura and Tinnevelly are probably either a sub-division or an offshoot of the Maravans. In Coimbatore, the only other district in which the Parivāras are numerous, they seem to be a sub-division of Toreyas, a fishing caste, and Mr. Rice, in his Gazetteer (of Mysore), says that Parivāra is a synonym of Besta." Further, in the Census Report, 1901, it is stated that "the word Parivāram means 'a retinue,' and was probably originally only an occupational term. It is now-a-days applied to the domestic servants and the Tottiya zamindars in the districts of Coimbatore, Trichinopoly, Madura, and Tinnevelly, who are recruited from several castes, but have come to form a caste by themselves. The Kōtaris of South Canara are a somewhat parallel case, and probably in time the Paiks among the Oriyas, and the Khāsas, who are servants to the Telugu zamindars, will similarly develop into separate castes. The caste is said to require all its members of both sexes to do such service for its masters as they may require. Persons of any caste above the Paraiyas are admitted into its ranks, and the men in it may marry a woman of any other caste with the permission of the zamindar under whom they serve. They do not habitually employ Brāhmans as priests, and in places the head of the Tottiyan caste 