The Aheria are a scheduled caste of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 that number about 140,000. Their name means hunter. This was their main occupation prior to the 1920s. Since then they have become farmers. The Aheria are found mainly in the states of Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

 and Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

.

Most of the Aheria are Hindus and speak Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

. However there are 17 other languages spoken by Aheria people, the most numerous being Harauti which has about 2,000 speakers among the Aheria.

The Aheria are also known as Aheri, Ahiria, Beta, Herbi, Heri, Hersi, Hesi, Naik, Thori or Turi.

History

According to the 1908 Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics, they are a Dravidian tribe

Dravidian peoples

Dravidian peoples is a term used to refer to the diverse groups of people who natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers of around 220 million are found mostly in Southern India. Other Dravidian people are found in parts of central India, Sri Lanka,...

, numbering around 35,000, who mainly held animistic

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....

 beliefs, besides Hinduism. They also worshiped Gugga

Gugga

Gugga Pir The great Indian Hindu was a Rajput warrior-king. He was reputed to have the power to bring the dead to life and cure those suffering from snake bites. He was also referred to as king of snakes. He was reputed to be a disciple of Guru Gorakhnath Ji...

, a Rajput

Rajput

A Rajput is a member of one of the patrilineal clans of western, central, northern India and in some parts of Pakistan. Rajputs are descendants of one of the major ruling warrior classes in the Indian subcontinent, particularly North India...

warrior-king who had acquired the status of a saint.

External links

• http://www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php?rop3=111291&rog3=IN