Billava Erotic

The name most likely comes from billu, the Tulu word for bow, and the Billavas of coastal Karnataka have been several things at once: archers and soldiers for local chieftains, toddy tappers working the coconut and palmyra palms, folk healers known as Baidyas, and officiants at the spirit shrines that anchor Tulu religious life. They are generally counted as the largest single community in Tulu Nadu, the strip of coast between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea that takes in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts and spills into Kasaragod in Kerala. Their language is Tulu, a Dravidian tongue with a deep oral literature and little official standing, surrounded by Kannada to the north and east and Malayalam to the south. Most Billavas handle Kannada as well, since it is the language of school and state.

Billavas are Hindu, but the texture of that Hinduism is local. The center of gravity is the worship of daivas or bhutas, territorial spirits honored in night-long possession rituals, and the common surname Poojary records the community's long service as priests in those shrines. Their own heroes are the twin brothers Koti and Chennayya, sons of a Billava healer named Deyi Baidethi. Tradition places them in the sixteenth century. They died in battle and are now venerated in garadis across the region. A garadi is part shrine and part gymnasium, a reminder of the martial training once taught there, and the twins' story survives as a long sung epic in Tulu. Descent traditionally ran through the mother under the aliyasantana system, with property passing from a man to his sister's children and clan membership, the bari, inherited from the mother. Law reforms have dismantled the inheritance rules, but marriage within one's own bari is still avoided.

For all that, the caste order placed Billavas low. They were kept out of Brahmin-run temples, and toddy tapping carried a stigma. Some answered by converting to Protestantism through the Basel Mission in the nineteenth century. Many more rallied to the Kerala reformer Narayana Guru, who in 1912 consecrated the Gokarnanatheshwara temple at Kudroli in Mangalore, a temple Billavas built for themselves and which now stages the city's Dasara celebrations. Migration did the rest. Generations of Billavas went to Bombay, many starting as hotel and restaurant workers, and built community institutions there, including a cooperative bank. Others went to the Gulf. Today the community spans farmers, shopkeepers, professionals and politicians, and tapping is a shrinking occupation. They are often compared with the Ezhavas and Thiyyas of Kerala and the Idigas of inland Karnataka, groups with a similar history.