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This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in<br/>1916 its contents related only to Central India and did not claim to be true <br />of all of India. It has been archived for its historical value as well as for<br/>the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities<br/>of India. Indpaedia neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this <br/> article. Readers who wish to add fresh information can create a Part II of this <br/> article. The general rule is that if we have nothing nice to say about <br/> communities other than our own it is best to say nothing at all. <br/>

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[[Category:India|Y]]
[[Category:Communities|Y]]
[[Category:Name|Alphabet]]
[[Category:Name|Alphabet]]
From '''The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India '''

By R. V. Russell

Of The Indian Civil Service

Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces

Assisted By
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal,
Extra Assistant Commissioner

Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.

''' NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh. '''

NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from a book. During scanning some errors are bound to occur. Some letters get garbled. Footnotes get inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot errors might like to correct them, and shift footnotes gone astray to their rightful place.

=Yerukala=

A vagrant gipsy tribe of Madras of whom
a small number are returned from the Chanda District.
They live by thieving, begging, fortune-telling and making
baskets, and are usually treated as identical with the
Koravas or Kuravas, who have the same occupations. Both
speak a corrupt Tamil, and the Yeriikalas are said to call
one another Kurru or Kura. It has been supposed that
Korava was the Tamil name which in the Telugu country
became Yerukalavandlu or fortune-teller. Mr. (Sir H.)
Stewart thought there could be no doubt of the identity
of the two castes,^ though Mr. Francis points out differences
1 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xxii. p. 212. - Madras Census Report (1891).

between them.^ The Yerukalas arc expert thieves.

They
frequent villai^es on the pretence of begging, and rob by
clay in regular groups under a female leader, who is known
as Jemadarin. Each gang is provided with a bunch of
ke}'s and picklocks. They locate a locked house in an
unfrequented lane, and one of them stands in front as if
begging ; the remainder are posted as watchers in the
vicinity, and the Jemadarin picks the lock and enters the
house. When the leader comes out with the booty she
locks the door and they all walk away.

If any one comes
up while the leader is in the house the woman at the door
engages him in conversation by some device, such as producing
a silver coin and asking 'if it is good. She then
begins to dispute, and laying hold of him calls out to her
comrades that the man has abused her or been taking
liberties with her. The others run up and jostle him away
from the door, and while they are all occupied with the
quarrel the thief escapes. Or an old woman goes from
house to house pretending to be a fortune-teller.

When she
finds a woman at home alone, she flatters and astonishes
her by relating the chief events in her life, how many
children she has, how many more are coming, and so on.
When the woman of the house is satisfied that the fortuneteller
has supernatural powers, she allows the witch to cover
her face with her robe, and shuts her eyes while the fortuneteller
breathes on them, and blows into her ears and sits
muttering charms.

Meanwhile one or two of the latter's
friends who have been lurking close by walk into the house
and carry away whatever they can lay their hands on. When
they have left the house the woman's face is uncovered and
the fortune-teller takes her fee and departs, leaving her
dupe to find out that her house has been robbed."' The
conjugal morals of these people are equally low. They sell
or pledge their wives and unmarried daughters, and will
take them back on the redemption of the pledge with any
children born in the interval, as though nothing out of the
ordinary had happened. When a man is sentenced to
imprisonment his wife selects another partner for the period
* Afadras Census Report (1901).

2 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xxi. pp. 170, 17 1.

of her husband's absence, going back to him on his release
with all her children, who are considered as his. Mr.
Thurston gives the following story of a gang of Koravas
or Yerukalas in Tinnevelly : " One morning, in Tinnevelly,
while the butler in a missionary's house was attending to
his duties, an individual turned up with a fine fowl for sale.
The butler, finding that he could purchase it for about half
the real price, bought it, and showed it to his wife with no
small pride in his ability in making a bargain. But he
was distinctly crestfallen when his wife pointed out that it
was his own bird, which had been lost on the previous
night.

The seller was a Korava." ^ In Madras they have
also now developed into expert railway thieves. They
have few restrictions as to food, eating cats and mice,
though not dogs.^ The Yerukalas practised the custom
of the Couvade as described by the Rev. John Cain, of
Dumagudem:^ "Directly the woman feels the birth-pangs
she informs her husband, who immediately takes some of
her clothes, puts them on, places on his forehead the mark
which the women usually place on theirs, retires into a dark
room where there is only a very dim lamp, and lies down
on the bed, covering himself up with a long cloth. When the
child is born it is washed and placed on the cot beside the
father.

Asafoetida, jaggery and other articles are then given,
not to the mother but to the father. During the days of
ceremonial impurity the man is treated as other Hindus
treat their women on such occasions. He is not allowed
to leave his bed, but has everything needful brought to him.
" The Yerukalas marry when quite young. At the birth
of a daughter the father of an unmarried little boy often
brings a rupee and ties it in the cloth of the father of a
newly-born girl. When the girl is grown up he can then
claim her for his son."

Yerukala - Revision history

Pdewan: Created page with " {| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"| This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in1916 its contents related only..."

Pdewan: Created page with " {| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"|
This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in
1916 its contents related only..."