Note 109 — B (continued 2)

2. They are elsewhere known under the name of Birwâr and Berwâr. In Ghâzipur they say they first came from Delhi, and take their name from Bernagar, their leading village. They are said to have come under the auspices of the Narauliyas, whom they helped to expel the Cheros.109 There is a sept of them in the Chhapra District. In Azamgarh110 they are said to be both Chhatris and Bhuînhârs, and not to rank high among either. “Each set ignores the origin of, or any connection with, the others. The Bhuînhârs can only say that they came from the westward. The Chhatris say they are Tomars, and were led from Bernagar, near Delhi, to Azamgarh, by a chief, Garak Deo, who lived between 1336 and 1455 A.D. The Chhatri and Bhuînhâr branches are of the same origin, as at marriages and other feasts they refuse to take from their hosts or offer to their guests broken cakes of pulse (bara). The origin of the custom is said to have been that at a feast to which a number of the Birwârs had been invited by another clan, their treacherous hosts, on the password bara khanda chalâo (khanda means “a sword” as well as “broken”), slaughtered the Birwârs. Their name is probably connected with this custom. The Brâhman ancestor of the sept is said to have come from Kanauj; but its different branches are not unanimous as to his name or pedigree, or how they came to Azamgarh.”