Kudiya
This article is an excerpt from Government Press, Madras |
Kudiya
The Kudiyas or Malē (hill) Kudiyas are found at Neriya, Darmasthala, and Sisila in the South Canara district. Those who live at the two former places are agrestic slaves of landlords who own cardamom plantations on the ghāts. They live for the most part in the jungles, beneath rocks, in caves, or in low huts, and shift from one spot to another. At the season of the cardamom crop, they come down to the plains once a week with the produce. They are said to carry off cardamoms to the Mysore frontier, and sell them fraudulently to contractors or merchants. They make fire traces for the Forest Department.
Except in stature, the Kudiyas have not retained the characters of a primitive race, and, as the result of racial admixture, or contact metamorphosis, some individuals are to be seen with comparatively light coloured skins, and mesorhine or leptorhine noses. In the matter of personal names, septs, and ceremonial observances, they have been much influenced by other castes. They speak a corrupt form of Tulu, and say that they follow the aliya santāna law of inheritance (in the female line), though some, especially at Sisala and on the Mysore frontier, follow the law of succession from father to son (makkala santāna). They are not regarded as a polluting class, and can enter all parts of their landlords’ houses, except the kitchen and dining-room. They are presided over by a headman, called Gurikāra, who inquires into transgression of caste rules, and assists on ceremonial occasions. Their chief deities are Bhairava, Kāmandēvaru, and the Pancha Pāndavas (the five Pāndava brothers), but they also believe in certain bhūthas (devils), such as Malē Kallurti and Ambatadaiva.
The Kudiyas do not object to marriage between a widowed woman and her eldest son. Among those attached to a landlord at Neriya, two such cases were pointed out. In one, there was no issue, but in the other a son had been born to the mother-wife.
When the arrangement of a match is in contemplation, the father of the prospective bridegroom goes, accompanied by two women, to the girl’s home, and takes with him betel leaves, areca-nuts, and gingelly (Sesamum) oil. If the girl’s parents consent to the match, they accept the oil; otherwise they refuse it. The binding part of the marriage ceremony consists of the bridal couple standing with their hands united, and the pouring of water thereon by the bride’s father. The Kudiyas who have settled on the plains have adopted the ceremonial observances of the Bants and other castes. The remarriage of widows is permitted. There is no elaborate marriage ceremony, but sometimes the contracting couple stand in the presence of the headman and a few others, and make a round mark with sandal paste on each other’s foreheads. If a member of the tribe dies near the settlement, the body is cremated, and, if far away therefrom, buried.
On the third day, a visit is paid to the place where cremation took place, and the son or some near relative of the deceased goes round the spot on which the corpse was burnt three times, and sprinkles rice thereon thrice. Five leaves of the teak or plantain, or other big leaves, are spread on the ground, and fowl’s flesh, cooked rice, and vegetables are placed thereon, and the ancestors are invoked in the words “Oh! old souls, gather up the new soul, and support it, making it one of you.” On the sixteenth day, food is again offered on leaves. In cases where burial is resorted to, an effigy of the deceased is made in straw, and burnt.
On the third day, the ashes are taken to the grave, and buried. In a note on the Kudiyas of the plains, it is recorded that “the dead are either burned or buried, the former being the custom in the case of rich men. On the seventh day after cremation or burial, a pandal (booth) is erected over the grave or the place of cremation, and a bleached cloth is spread on it by the washerman. A wick floating in half a cocoanut shell full of oil is then lighted, and placed at each corner of the pandal. The relations of the deceased then gather round the place, and weep, and throw a handful of rice over the spot.”
The Kudiyas are fond of toddy, and eat black monkeys, and the big red squirrel, which they catch with snares.
