Note 63 — K

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,63 “as a rule a fine well-built class of cultivators, very proud and exclusive, and have a great aversion to town life. Many of them never allow their wives to leave their compounds, and it is said that many never do field work on Sundays, but confine themselves on that day to their house-work.” “If,” a correspondent writes from the Kistna district, “you ask in a village whether so-and-so is a Brāhman, and they say ‘No. He is an āsāmi (ordinary man),’ he will be a Kamma or Kāpu. If you ask how many pay income-tax in a village, they may tell you two Baniyas (merchants), and two Samsāri-vallu, i.e., two prosperous Kamma ryots.”