The Bedars, whom I examined at Hospet in the Bellary district, used to go out on hunting expeditions, equipped with guns, deer or hog spears, nets like lawn-tennis nets used in drives for young deer or hares. Several men had cicatrices, as the result of encounters with wild boars during hunting expeditions, or when working in the sugar plantations. It is noted in the Bellary Gazetteer that "the only caste which goes in for manly sports seems to be the Boyas, or Bedars, as they are called in Canarese. They organise drives for pig, hunt bears in some parts in a fearless manner, and are regular attendants at the village gymnasium (garidi mane), a building without any ventilation often constructed partly underground, in which the ideal exercise consists in using dumbbells and clubs until a profuse perspiration follows. They get up wrestling matches, tie a band of straw round one leg, and challenge all and sundry to remove it, or back themselves to perform feats of strength, such as running up the steep Joladarasi hill near Hospet with a bag of grain on their back." At Hospet wrestling matches are held at a quiet spot outside the town, to witness which a crowd of many hundreds collect. The wrestlers, who performed before me, had the hair shaved clean behind so that the adversary could not seize them by the back hair, and the moustache was trimmed short for the same reason. Two young wrestlers, whose measurements I place on record, were splendid specimens of youthful muscularity.
Height 163.2 163 Shoulders 41.8 42.8 Chest 84 82 Upper arm, flexed 28 29 Thigh 47 51
In the Gazetteer of Anantapur it is stated that the Telugu New Year's day is the great occasion for driving pig, and the Boyas are the chief organisers of the beats. All except children, the aged and infirm, join in them, and, since to have good sport is held to be the best of auguries for the coming year, the excitement aroused is almost ludicrous in its intensity. It runs so high that the parties from rival villages have been known to use their weapons upon one another, instead of upon the beasts of the chase. In an article entitled "Boyas and bears" [117] a European sportsman gives the following graphic description of a bear hunt. "We used to sleep out on the top of one of the hills on a moonlight night. On the top of every hill round, a Boya was watching for the bears to come home at dawn, and frantic signals showed when one had been spotted. We hurried off to the place, to try and cut the bear off from his residence among the boulders, but the country was terribly rough, and the hills were covered with a peculiarly persistent wait-a-bit-thorn. This, however, did not baulk the Boyas. Telling me to wait outside the jumble of rocks, each man took off his turban, wound it round his left forearm, to act as a shield against attacks from the bear, lit a rude torch, grasped his long iron-headed spear, and coolly walked into the inky blackness of the enemy's stronghold, to turn him out for me to shoot at. I used to feel ashamed of the minor part assigned to me in the entertainment, and asked to be allowed to go inside with them. But this suggestion was always respectfully, but very firmly put aside. One could not see to shoot in such darkness, they explained, and, if one fired, smoke hung so long in the still air of the caves that the bear obtained an unpleasant advantage, and, finally, bullets fired at close quarters into naked rock were apt to splash or re-bound in an uncanny manner. So I had to wait outside until the bear appeared with a crowd of cheering and yelling Boyas after him." Of a certain cunning bear the same writer records that, unable to shake the Boyas off, "he had at last taken refuge at the bottom of a sort of dark pit, 'four men deep' as the Boyas put it, under a ledge of rock, where neither spears nor torches could reach him. Not to be beaten, three of the Boyas at length clambered down after him, and unable otherwise to get him to budge from under the mass of rock beneath which he had squeezed himself, fired a cheap little nickel-plated revolver one of them had brought twice into his face. The bear then concluded that his refuge was after all an unhealthy spot, rushed out, knocking one of the three men against the rocks as he did so, with a force which badly barked one shoulder, clambered out of the pit, and was thereafter kept straight by the Boyas until he got to the entrance of his residence, where I was waiting for him."