Farmers (Kapus) became Kammas and Velamas. In medieval times the term 'Kapu' meant a farmer or protector.Kapu is the base class from which Velama,Kamma and Reddy communities were derived.
Most famous are the restrictions placed upon contact with chiefs (kings), but these also apply to all people of known spiritual power. It was kapu to enter a chief's personal area, to come in contact with his hair or fingernail clippings, to look directly at him and to be in sight of him with a head higher than his. Wearing red and yellow feathers (a sign of royalty) was kapu, unless you were of the highest rank. Places that are kapu are often symbolized by two crossed staffs, each with a white ball atop.
The kapu system also governed contact between men and women. In particular, men and women could not eat meals together. Furthermore, certain foods such as pork, some types of bananas (as they resembled a phallus), and coconuts were considered kapu to women. As these examples might suggest, the sense of the term in Polynesia carries connotations of sacredness as much as forbidden-ness. Probably the best way to translate it into English is as meaning "marked off" or ritually restricted. The opposite of kapu is "noa" meaning "common" or "free".
"Kapu" restrictions were also used to regulate Hawaiian fishing in order to maintain the long term viability of ocean life in the 1700 and 1800s. Certain fishes and/or designated areas were forbidden (or kapu) at the times when overfishing could damage the environment. This is similar to the modern regulation of monitoring and regulating fishing and hunting through licensing but was well before the "modern" era and showed great insight into sustainable living.
The kapu system was used in Hawaii until 1819, when King Kamehameha II, acting with his mother Keopuolani and his father's queen Ka'ahumanu, abolished it by the symbolic act of sharing a meal of forbidden foods with the women of his court.
