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The Billava (), Billoru, Biruveru people are an ethnic Tuluva group of India. They constitute 18% of the coastal Karnataka population. They are found traditionally in Tulu Nadu region and primarily engaged in toddy tapping, Agriculture and other activities. They have used both missionary education and Sri Narayana Guru's reform movement to upgrade themselves.
L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer recounted the community's belief that billava means bowmen and that it "applied to the castemen who were largely employed as soldiers by the native rulers of the district". Edgar Thurston had reached a similar conclusion in 1909.
Traditionally, Kannada is used in formal situations such as education, while Tulu is the lingua franca used in everyday communication. Tulu is more accepted as the primary language in the north of the Tulu Nadu region, with the areas south of the Netravati River river demonstrating a more traditional, although gradually diminishing, distinction between that language and the situations in which Kannada is to be preferred. A form of the Tulu language known as Common Tulu has been identified, and this is spreading as an accepted standard for formal communication. Although four versions of it exist, based on geographic demarcations and also the concentration of various caste groups within those areas, that version which is more precisely known as Northern Common Tulu is superseding the other three dialects. the Brahmin community use Common Tulu only to speak with those outside their own caste, while communities such as the Bunts, Billavas and use it frequently, and the tribal communities are increasingly abandoning their own dialects in favour of it.
William Logan's work Manual of Malabar, a publication of the British Raj period, recognised the Billavas as being the largest single community in South Canara, representing nearly 20 per cent of that district's population.
Iyer described the rules regarding marriage as
Marriage of widows was permitted but the wedding ritual in such cases was simplified. An amended version of the ceremony was also used for situations where an illegitimate child might otherwise result: the father had to marry the pregnant woman in such circumstances.
Women were considered to be ritually polluted at the time of their first menstrual cycle and also during the period of pregnancy and childbirth.
The Billava dead are usually cremated, although burial occurs in some places, and there is a ritual pollution period observed at this time also. The Billava community is one of a few in India that practice posthumous marriage. Others that do so include the Badagas, Komatis and the Todas.
The venues for Bhuta Kola are temple structures called Bhutasthana or Garidi as well as numerous shrines. The officiators at worship are a subcaste of Billavas, known as Poojary (priest), and their practices are known as pooja. Iyer noted that families often have a place set aside in their home for the worship of a particular Bhuta and that the worship in this situation is called Bhuta Nema.
Iyer, who considered the most prevalent of the Billava Bhutas to be the twin heroes Koti and Chennayya, also described the spirits as being of people who when living had
More recently, Ghosh has described a distinction between the Bhuta of southern India, as worshipped by the Billavas, and the similarly named demons of the north
Bhuta Kola is a cult practised by a large section of Tulu Nadu society, ranging from landlords to the Dalits, and the various hierarchical strands all have their place within it. While those at the top of this hierarchical range provide patronage, others such as the Billava provide the practical services of officiating and tending the shrines, while those at the bottom of the hierarchy enact the rituals, which include aspects akin to the regional theatrical art forms known as Kathakali and Yakshagana. For example, the pooja rituals include devil-dancing, performed by the lower class Paravar or Naike, and the Bunts – who were historically ranked as superior to the Billava– rely upon the Poojary to officiate.
There was a significance in the Bunt landholdings and the practice of Bhuta worship. As the major owners of land, the Bunts held geographic hubs around which their tenant farmers and other agricultural workers were dispersed. The Billavas, being among the dispersed people, were bonded to their landlords by the necessities of livelihood and were spread so that they were unable to unite in order to assert authority. Furthermore, the Bhuta belief system also provided remedies for social and legal issues: it provided a framework for day-to-day living.
Thurston noted that Baidya was a common name among the community, as was Poojary. He was told that this was a corruption of Vaidya, meaning a physician.
According to Ghosh, "By tradition, the are also associated with the martial arts and the single most famous pair of Tuluva heroes, the brothers Koti-Chennaya, are archetypal heroes of the caste who symbolize the often hostile competition between the Billavas and the Bunts." Neither Thurston nor Iyer make any reference to this claim.
Some Billavas had seen the possibility of using religion as a vehicle for the social advancement of their community, as the had previously attempted in their conversion to Christianity. The British had wrested the region from the control of Tipu Sultan in 1799, as a consequence of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, and in 1834 the Christian Basel Mission arrived in Mangalore. These evangelists were among the first to take advantage of a relaxation of rules that had prevented non-British missionaries from working in India, and theirs was the first Protestant mission of any nationality in the area. They initially condemned the caste system because it was an inherent part of the Hindu religion and therefore must be wrong, but they came to see the divisions caused by it as being evil in their own right and took to undermining it as a matter of social justice. They considered the stratification of the caste system as being contrary to Christian values, which proclaimed that all were equal in the eyes of God. These missionaries had some success in converting native people, of which those converted from among the Billavas formed the "first and largest group". Brückner describes the Billavas as being "the strongest group among the converts" and that, along with the Bunts, they were "the mainstays of the popular local religion, and the mission was probably induced by this target group to occupy itself with its practices and oral literature."
Alagodi notes that the
However, the conversion of Billavas to Christianity did not always run smoothly. The Basel missionaries were more concerned with the quality of those converted than with the quantity. In 1869 they rejected a proposition that 5000 Billavas would convert if the missionaries would grant certain favours, including recognition of the converts as a separate community within the church and also a dispensation to continue certain of their traditional practices. The missionaries took the view that the proposition was contrary to their belief in equality and that it represented both an incomplete rejection of the caste system and of Hindu practices. Alagodi has speculated that if the proposition had been accepted then "Protestant Christians would have been perhaps one of the largest religious communities in and around Mangalore today." A further barrier to conversion proved to be the Billava's toddy tapping occupation: the Basel Mission held no truck with alcohol, and those who did convert found themselves economically disadvantaged, often lacking both a job and a home. This could apply even if they were not toddy tappers: as tenant farmers or otherwise involved in agriculture, they would lose their homes and the potential beneficence of their landlords if they converted. The Mission attempted to alleviate this situation by provision of work, principally in factories that produced tiles and woven goods.
Nireshvalya Arasappa—described by Kenneth Jones as "one of the few educated Billavas"—was one such person who looked to conversion from Hinduism as a means to advancement during the nineteenth century. Having initially examined the opportunities provided by Christian conversion, Arasappa became involved with the Brahmo Samaj movement in the 1870s and he arranged for Brahmo missionaries to meet with his community. The attempt met with little success: the Billavas were suspicious of the Brahmo representatives, who wore western clothing and spoke in English whereas the Basel Missionaries had studied the local languages and produced a copy of the New Testament in both Tulu and Kannada.
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