Chaliyan
This article is an excerpt from Government Press, Madras |
Chāliyan
The Chāliyans are a caste of Malayālam cotton weavers, concerning whom Mr. Francis writes as follows10:—“In dress and manners they resemble the artisan castes of Malabar, but, like the Pattar Brāhmans, they live in streets, which fact probably points to their being comparatively recent settlers from the east coast. They have their own barbers called Potuvāns, who are also their purōhits. They do not wear the sacred thread, as the Sālē weavers of the east coast do. They practise ancestor worship, but without the assistance of Brāhman priests. This is the only Malabar caste which has anything to do with the right and left-hand faction disputes, and both divisions are represented in it, the left hand being considered the superior. Apparently, therefore, it settled in Malabar some time after the beginnings of this dispute on the east coast, that is, after the eleventh century A. D. Some of them follow the marumakkatāyam and others the makkatāyam law of inheritance, which looks as if the former were earlier settlers than the latter.” The Chāliyans are so called because, unlike most of the west coast classes, they live in streets, and Teruvan (teru, a street) occurs as a synonym for the caste name. The right-hand section are said to worship the elephant god Ganēsa, and the left Bhagavāti.
The following account of the Chāliyans is given in the Gazetteer of the Malabar district: “Chāliyans are almost certainly a class of immigrants from the east coast. They live in regular streets, a circumstance strongly supporting this view. The traditional account [12]is to the same effect. It is said that they were originally of a high caste, and were imported by one of the Zāmorins, who wished to introduce the worship of Ganapathi, to which they are much addicted. The latter’s minister, the Mangatt Acchan, who was entrusted with the entertainment of the new arrivals, and was nettled by their fastidiousness and constant complaints about his catering, managed to degrade them in a body by the trick of secretly mixing fish with their food. They do not, like their counterparts on the east coast, wear the thread; but it is noticeable that their priests, who belong to their own caste, wear it over the right shoulder instead of over the left like the Brāhman’s pūnūl, when performing certain pūjas (worship).
In some parts, the place of the regular pūnūl is taken by a red scarf or sash worn in the same manner. They are remarkable for being the only caste in Malabar amongst whom any trace of the familiar east coast division into right-hand and left-hand factions is to be found. They are so divided; and those belonging to the right-hand faction deem themselves polluted by the touch of those belonging to the left-hand sect, which is numerically very weak. They are much addicted to devil-dancing, which rite is performed by certain of their numbers called Kōmarams in honour of Bhagavathi and the minor deities Vettekkorumagan and Gulikan (a demon). They appear to follow makkatāyam (descent from father to son) in some places, and marumakkatāyam (inheritance in the female line) in others. Their pollution period is ten days, and their purification is performed by the Talikunnavan (sprinkler), who belongs to a somewhat degraded section of the caste.”
The affairs of the caste are managed by headmen called Urālans, and the caste barber, or Pothuvan, acts as [13]the caste messenger. Council meetings are held at the village temple, and the fines inflicted on guilty persons are spent in celebrating pūja (worship) thereat.
When a girl reaches puberty, the elderly females of Urālan families take her to a tank, and pour water over her head from small cups made of the leaves of the jāk (Artocarpus integrifolia) tree. She is made to sit apart on a mat in a room decorated with young cocoanut leaves. Round the mat raw rice and paddy (unhusked rice) are spread, and a vessel containing cocoanut flowers and cocoanuts is placed near her. On the third evening, the washerman (Peruvannān) brings some newly-washed cloths (māttu). He is presented with some rice and paddy, which he ties up in a leaf, and does pūja. He then places the cloths on a plank, which he puts on his head. After repeating some songs or verses, he sets it down on the floor. Some of the girl’s female relations take a lighted lamp, a pot of water, a measure of rice, and go three times round the plank. On the following day, the girl is bathed, and the various articles which have been kept in her room are thrown into a river or tank.
Like many other Malabar castes, the Chāliyans perform the tāli kettu ceremony. Once in several years, the girls of the village who have to go through this ceremony are brought to the house of one of the Urālans, where a pandal (booth) has been set up. Therein a plank, made of the wood of the pāla tree (Alstonia scholaris), a lighted lamp, betel leaves and nuts, a measure of raw rice, etc., are placed. The girl takes her seat on the plank, holding in her right hand a mimic arrow (shanthulkōl). The Pothuvan, who receives a fanam (coin) and three bundles of betel leaves for his services, hands the tāli to a male member of an Urālan family, who ties it on the girl’s neck. [14]
On the day before the wedding-day the bridegroom, accompanied by his male relations, proceeds to the house of the bride, where a feast is held. On the following day the bride is bathed, and made to stand before a lighted lamp placed on the floor. The bridegroom’s father or uncle places two gold fanams (coins) in her hands, and a further feast takes place.
In the seventh month of pregnancy, the ceremony called puli kudi (or drinking tamarind) is performed. The woman’s brother brings a twig of a tamarind tree, and, after the leaves have been removed, plants it in the yard of the house. The juice is extracted from the leaves, and mixed with the juice of seven cocoanuts. The elderly female relations of the woman give her a little of the mixture. The ceremony is repeated during three days. Birth pollution is removed by a barber woman sprinkling water on the ninth day.
The dead are buried. The son carries a pot of water to the grave, round which he takes it three times. The barber makes a hole in the pot, which is then thrown down at the head of the grave. The barber also tears off a piece of the cloth, in which the corpse is wrapped. This is, on the tenth day, taken by the son and barber to the sea or a tank, and thrown into it. Three stones are set up over the grave.
Chāliyan also occurs as an occupational title or sub-division of Nāyars, and Chāliannaya as an exogamous sept of Bant. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Chāliyan is given as a sub-caste of Vāniyan (oil-pressers). Some Chāliyans are, however, oilmongers by profession.
