Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Gatti
Gatti.— A small caste of cultivators, found chiefly near Kumbla and Someswara in the Kasaragod tāluk of South Canara. Other names for the caste are Poladava and Holadava, both signifying men of the field. Like the Bants, they follow the aliya santāna law of inheritance (in the female line), have exogamous septs or balis, and, on the day of the final death ceremonies, construct car-like structures, if the deceased was an important personage in the community. The Bants and Gattis interdine, but do not intermarry. The headman of the Gattis is called Gurikāra. The God of the Someswara temple is regarded as the caste deity, and every family has to pay an annual fee of four annas to this temple. Failure to do so would entail excommunication.