"In the Kurnool district, they have a bad name, and many are on the police records as habitual thieves and housebreakers. They seldom stoop to lesser offences. Some are carpenters, others blacksmiths who manufacture all sorts of agricultural implements. Some, again, are engaged as watchmen, and others make excellent snares for fish out of bamboo. But the majority of them are agriculturists, and most of them work on their own putta lands. They are now a hard-working, industrious people, who have become thrifty by dint of their industry, and whose former predatory habits are being forgotten. Each village, or group of villages, submits to the authority of a headman, who is generally termed the Naidu, less commonly Dora as chieftain. In some parts of Kurnool, the headmen are called Simhasana Boyas. The headman presides at all functions, and settles, with the assistance of the elders, any disputes that may arise in the community regarding division of property, adultery, and other matters. The headman has the power to inflict fines, the amount of which is regulated by the status and wealth of the defaulter. But it is always arranged that the penalty shall be sufficient to cover the expense of feeding the panchayatdars (members of council), and leave a little over to be divided between the injured party and the headman. In this way, the headman gets paid for his services, and practically fixes his own remuneration."
It is stated in the Manual of the Bellary district that "of the various Hindu castes in Bellary, the Boyas (called in Canarese Bedars, Byedas, or Byadas) are far the strongest numerically. Many of the Poligars whom Sir Thomas Munro found in virtual possession of the country when it was added to the Company belonged to this caste, and their irregular levies, and also a large proportion of Haidar's formidable force, were of the same breed. Harpanahalli was the seat of one of the most powerful Poligars in the district in the eighteenth century. The founder of the family was a Boya taliari, who, on the subversion of the Vijayanagar dynasty, seized on two small districts near Harpanahalli. The Boyas are perhaps the only people in the district who still retain any aptitude for manly sports. They are now for the most part cultivators and herdsmen or are engaged under Government as constables, peons, village watchmen (taliaris), and so forth. Their community provides an instructive example of the growth of caste sub-divisions. Both the Telugu-speaking Boyas and the Canarese-speaking Bedars are split into the two main divisions of Uru or village men, and Myasa or grass-land men, and each of these divisions is again sub-divided into a number of exogamous Bedagas. Four of the best known of these sub-divisions are Yemmalavaru or buffalo-men; Mandalavaru or men of the herd; Pulavaru or flower-men, and Minalavaru or fish-men. They are in no way totemistic. Curiously enough, each Bedagu has its own particular god, to which its members pay special reverence. But these Bedagas bear the same names among both the Boyas and the Bedars, and also among both the Uru and Myasa divisions of both Boyas and Bedars. It thus seems clear that, at some distant period, all the Boyas and all the Bedars must have belonged to one homogeneous caste. At present, though Uru Boyas will marry with Uru Bedars and Myasa Boyas with Myasa Bedars, there is no intermarriage between Urus and Myasas, whether they be Boyas or Bedars. Even if Urus and Myasas dine together, they sit in different rows, each division by themselves. Again, the Urus (whether Boyas or Bedars) will eat chicken and drink alcohol, but the Myasas will not touch a fowl or any form of strong drink, and are so strict in this last matter that they will not even sit on mats made of the leaf of the date-palm, the tree which in Bellary provides all the toddy. The Urus, moreover, celebrate their marriages with the ordinary ceremonial of the halu-kamba or milk-post, and the surge, or bathing of the happy pair; the bride sits on a flour-grinding stone, and the bridegroom stands on a basket full of cholam (millet), and they call in Brahmans to officiate. But the Myasas have a simpler ritual, which omits most of these points, and dispenses with the Brahman. Other differences are that the Uru women wear ravikkais or tight-fitting bodices, while the Myasas tuck them under their waist-string. Both divisions eat beef, and both have a hereditary headman called the ejaman, and hereditary Dasaris who act as their priests."