Nattupattan.--A section of Ambalavasis. (See Unni.)

Nattusamban.--Samban (a name of Siva) is a title of some Tamil

Paraiyans. Nattusamban denotes a village Paraiyan.

Nattuvan.--Defined in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as "an

occupational term, meaning a dancing-master, which is applied to males

of the dancing-girl castes, who teach dancing." At nautch parties,

when the Deva-dasis dance, the Nattuvans play the accompaniment on

the drum, bag-pipe, flute, clarionet, cymbals, etc. At the initiation

of a Kaikolan girl as a Deva-dasi, her dancing-master seats himself

behind her, and, grasping her legs, moves them up and down in time

with the music. Some Occhans in the Tamily country, who teach dancing

to Deva-dasis, are also called Nattuvan.

Natuvili (middle).--A sub-division of Paraiyans in Travancore.

Navakoti (nine crores).--An exogamous sept of Desur Reddi. A crore

is one hundred lakhs, i.e., 10,000,000.

Navalipitta (peacock).--A sept of Jatapu.

Navayat.--The Navayats or Navayets are summed up, in the Madras Census

Report, 1901, as "a Musalman tribe, which appears to have originally

settled at Bhatkal in North Canara, and is known on the west coast

as Bhatkali. The derivation of the name is much disputed. There are

five sub-divisions of the tribe, namely, Kureshi, Mehkeri, Chida,

Gheas, and Mohagir. It takes a high place among Musalmans, and does

not intermarry with other tribes."

Of the Nevayets, the following account, based on the Saadut Nama,

and conversations with members of the community, is given by Colonel

Wilks. [116] "Nevayet is generally supposed to be a corruption of

the Hindustanee and Mahratta terms for new-comer. About the end of

the first century of the Hejira, or the early part of the eighth

century of the Christian era, Hejaj Bin Yusuf, Governor of Irak, on

the part of the Khalif Abd-al-Melik-bin-Merwan, a monster abhorred

for his cruelties even among Musalmans, drove some respectable and

opulent persons of the house of Hâshem to the desperate resolution

of abandoning for ever their native country. Aided by the good

offices of the inhabitants of Kufa, a town of celebrity in those

days, situated near to the tomb of Ali, west of the Euphrates, they

departed with their families, dependents, and effects, and embarked

on ships prepared for their reception in the Persian Gulf. Some of

these landed on that part of the western coast of India called the

Concan; the others to the eastward of Cape Comorin; the descendants

of the former are the Nevayets; of the latter the Lubbe. The Lubbe

pretend to one common origin with the Nevayets, and attribute their

black complexion to intermarriage with the natives; but the Nevayets

affirm that the Lubbe are the descendants of their domestic slaves;

and there is certainly, in the physiognomy of this very numerous class,

and in their stature and form, a strong resemblance to the natives

of Abyssinia. The Nevayets of the western coast preserved the purity

of their original blood by systematically avoiding intermarriage with

the Indians, and even with the highest Muhammadan families, for many

centuries after the establishment of the Musalman dynasties of the

Deckan. Even at this time there are some Nevayets whose complexions

approach the European freshness. Their adherence to each other as

members of the same family preserved their respectability; and they

were famed at the Muhammadan courts of the Deckan for uniting the

rare qualities of the soldier, the scholar, and the gentleman."

Navutiyan.--A synonym of Velakkattalavan.

Nayadi.--In the Malabar Manual, the Nayadis are briefly summed up

as follows. "Of the Nayadis, or lowest caste among the Hindus--the

dog-eaters--nothing definite is known. They are most persistent in

their clamour for charity, and will follow at a respectful distance,

for miles together, any person walking, driving, or boating. If

anything is given to them, it must be laid down, and, after the person

offering it has proceeded a sufficient distance, the recipient comes

timidly forward, and removes it."

The subjects, whom I examined and measured at Shoranur, though living

only about three miles off, had, by reason of the pollution which

they traditionally carry with them, to avoid walking over the long

bridge which spans the river, and follow a circuitous route of many

miles. Eventually they had to climb, or be ignominiously hoisted over

the wall of the bungalow. Ignorant of the orthodox manner of using a

chair, the first victim of the craniometer, who had to sit while his

head was under examination, assumed the undignified position with which

Eton boys who have been swished are familiar. Measurements concluded,

men, women, and children sat down on the grass to an ample feast. And,

before they departed homeward, copious blessings were invoked on me,

to a chorus composed of the repetition of a single shrill note, not

unlike that of the first note of a jackal cry. To quote the newspaper

account of my doings, which refers to the 'monograms' issued by me on

matters ethnological: "In the evening the kind gentleman gave them a

sumptuous treat of canji and curry, and gave them also copper coins,

toddy, and arrack. The poor people left the place immensely pleased,

and were safely escorted to the British side of the river from the

Cochin territory."

When travelling on the public roads in Malabar or Cochin, one may

observe a few ragged and dirty cloths spread near the road, with one

or two copper coins on them; and, at the same time, hear a chorus

of monotonous stentorian voices at a distance of a hundred yards or

more, emanating from a few miserable specimens of humanity, standing

ghost-like with dishevelled hair, and a long strip of leaves tied

round the waist, or clad in a dirty loin-cloth. The coins represent

the alms given by the charitably disposed traveller, and the persons

are Nayadis. I am told that, near Kollatur, there is a stone called

the Nayadi parai, which is believed to be a man who was turned into

stone for not giving alms to a Nayadi.

The name Nayadi is equivalent to Nayattukar, i.e., hunter. The Nayadis

are, in fact, professional hunters, and are excellent shots. The

Nayars and other higher classes, used formerly to take them with

them on hunting and shooting expeditions. But, since the Arms Act

came into force, the Nayadis find this occupation gone. They are

also good archers, and used to kill deer, pigs, hares, etc., and

eat them. These animals are now difficult to get, as the forests are

reserved by Government, and private forests are denuded of their trees

for use as fuel, and for house-building by a growing population,

and for consumption on the railway. The suggestion has been made

that the name Nayadi is derived from the fact of their eating otters,

which live in hill streams, and are called nir-nai (water-dog).

The approach of a Nayadi within a distance of three hundred feet

is said to contaminate a Brahman, who has to bathe and put on a new

sacred thread, to cleanse himself of the pollution. The Nayadis, in

fact, hold the lowest position in the social scale, and consequently

labour under the greatest disadvantage.

The Nayadis live mostly in isolated huts on the tops of hills,

and generally select a shola, or glade, where there is a pond or

stream. Some families live on the land of their landlords, whose

crops they watch by night, to guard them against the attacks of wild

beasts. Sometimes they are engaged in ploughing, sowing, weeding,

transplanting, and reaping, the rice crop, or in plantain (banana)

gardens. I take exception to the comparison by a recent author of the

British Empire to the banana (Musa) throwing out aërial roots. The

banyan (Ficus bengalensis) must have been meant.

The male members of the community are called Nayadis, and the

females Nayadichis. The boys are called Molayans, and the young girls

Manichis. Succession is in the male line (makkathayam).

A thatched shed with palm-leaf walls, a few earthen pots, and a

chopper, constitute the Nayadi's property. He occasionally collects

honey and bees-wax, and also the gum (matti pasai) from the mattipal

tree (Ailanthus malabarica), which, when burnt, is used as temple

incense and for fumigating the bed-chamber. He receives toddy in

exchange for the honey and wax, and copper coins for the gum, with

which he purchases luxuries in the shape of salt, chillies, dried fish,

tobacco, and liquor. He makes rough ropes from the malanar plant, and

the bark of the kayyul tree (Bauhinia). The bark is soaked in water,

sun-dried, and the fibre manufactured into rope. He also makes slings

of fibre, wherewith he knocks over birds, and mats from a species

of Cyperus.

According to custom, the Nayadi has to offer four ropes, each eight

yards long, to every Nambutiri illam, and two ropes to every Nayar

house near his settlement, on the occasion of the Vishu and Onam

festivals. In return he receives a fixed measure of paddy (rice). The

ropes are used for tethering cattle, and for drawing water from

the well. By a wise dispensation of the ancient local chieftains,

to each Nayadi is assigned a desom (portion of a parish), within

which he enjoys certain privileges. And no Nayadi has any business

to poach on his preserves. The privileges are these. On birthdays,

anniversaries, and festive occasions, the Nayadi receives his share

of curry and rice, tied up in an old cloth. When a person is sick, a

black country-made kambli (blanket), with gingelly (Sesamum), mustard,

turmeric, and cocoanut tied up in the four corners, is passed three

times over the patient and presented to a Nayadi, together with a

palm umbrella, a stick, and a cucumber. This is called kala-dhanam,

or offering to Yama, the god of death, whose attack has to be warded

off by propitiatory offerings. The Nayadi accepts the gifts, and

prays for the long life and prosperity of the giver. Placing them

before his own family god, he prays that the life of the sick person

may be spared, and that the disease may not be transferred to him.

Like the Cherumans, the Nayadis drink, but they cannot afford to buy

as much toddy as the former, for the Cheruman works regularly for a

daily wage. Monkeys, which are very troublesome in gardens, are shot

down by the higher classes, and given to the Nayadis to eat. Their

dietary includes rats, mungooses, pigs, deer, paraquets, the koel

(cuckoo), doves, quails, fowls, paddy-birds, hares, tortoises, Varanus

(lizard), crocodiles, and fish. They abstain from eating the flesh of

dogs, cats, snakes, land-crabs, shell-fish, and beef. Among vegetables,

the tubers of yams (Dioscorea) and Colocasia are included. They produce

fire by friction with two sticks of Litsoea sebifera, in the shorter

of which a cavity is scooped out. They do not, like the Todas, put

powdered charcoal in the cavity, but ignite the cloth rag by means

of the red-hot wood dust produced by the friction.

When a woman is pregnant, she craves for the flesh of a monkey or

jungle squirrel during the sixth month. During the seventh month,

a ceremony is performed, to relieve her of the influence of devils,

who may be troubling her. It is called ozhinnukalayuka. Abortion is

attributed to the malign influence of evil spirits. To ward off this,

they tie round the neck a magic thread, and invoke the aid of their

hill gods and the spirits of their ancestors. They erect a special

hut for delivery, to which the woman retires. When she is in labour,

her husband shampooes his own abdomen, while praying to the gods for

her safe delivery--a custom which seems to suggest the couvade. As

soon as his wife is delivered, he offers thanks to the gods "for

having got the baby out." The woman observes pollution for ten days,

during which her husband avoids seeing her. Any deformity in the child

is attributed to the evil influence of the gods. On the twenty-eighth

day after birth, the ceremony of naming the child takes place. The

name given to the first-born son is that of the paternal grandfather,

and to the first-born daughter that of the maternal grandmother. In the

fifth year, the ear-boring ceremony takes place, and the operation is

performed by the child's uncle. A piece of brass wire takes the place

of ear-rings. Girls wear a plug of wood in the lobes. The Nayadichis

do not, like the Cheruman women, wear bracelets, but have many rows

of beads round their necks, and hanging over their bosoms.

When a girl reaches puberty, a Nayadichi leads her to a tank (pond),

in which she bathes, after a pandi, composed of several pieces of

plantain leaf tied together, has been carried three or four times

round her. She must not touch any utensils, and must abstain from

touching her head with the hand, and, if the skin itches, the body

must be scratched with a small stick.

Concerning a very interesting form of marriage, Mr. T. K. Gopal

Panikkar writes as follows. [117] "A large hut is constructed of

'holly' and other leaves, inside which the girl is ensconced. Then

all the young men and women of the village gather round the hut,

and form a ring about it. The girl's father, or the nearest male

relative, sits a short distance from the crowd, with a tom-tom in his

hands. Then commences the music, and a chant is sung by the father,

which has been freely translated as follows:--

Take the stick, my sweetest daughter,

Now seize the stick, my dearest love,

Should you not capture the husband you wish for,

Remember, 'tis fate decides whom you shall have.

"All the young men, who are eligible for marriage, arm themselves

with a stick each, and begin to dance round the hut, inside which

the bride is seated. This goes on for close on an hour, when each of

them thrusts his stick inside the hut through the leafy covering. The

girl has then to take hold of one of these sticks from the inside,

and the owner of the stick which she seizes becomes the husband of

the concealed bride. This ceremony is followed up by feasting, after

which the marriage is consummated."

A photograph by Mr. F. Fawcett shows a young man with a ring hanging

round his neck, as a sign that he was still unattached. But he was

soon about to part with it, for a present of a rupee enabled him to

find a girl, and fix up a marriage, within two days.

Adultery is regarded with abhorrence, and there is a belief that

those who are guilty of it are liable to be attacked by wild beasts

or demons. On the occasion of the marriage of a divorced woman's son

or daughter, the mother attends the festivities, if she receives a

cordial invitation from her children. But she does not look her former

husband straight in the face, and returns to her home the same evening.

When a man lies at the point of death, it is usual to distribute

rice kanji to the people, who, after taking their fill, become

possessed with the power of predicting the fate in store for the sick

man. According as the taste of the kanji turns to that of a corpse,

or remains unaltered, the death or recovery of the patient is foretold

in their deep and loud voices. [118] The Nayadis either burn or bury

their dead. Several layers of stones are placed within the grave, and

its site is marked by three big stones, one in the middle, and one at

each end. The burnt ashes of the bones are collected, and preserved

in a pot, which is kept close to the hut of the deceased. Pollution

is observed for ten days, during which the enangan (relations by

marriage) cook for the mourners. On the tenth day, the sons of the

deceased go, together with their relations, to the nearest stream,

and bury the bones on the bank. The sons bathe, and perform beli,

so that the soul of the departed may enter heaven, and ghosts may not

trouble them. After the bath, a sand-heap, representing the deceased,

is constructed, and on it are placed a piece of plantain leaf, some

unboiled rice, and karuka grass (Cynodon Dactylon). Over these water

is poured twelve times, and the sons reverently prostrate themselves

before the heap. They then return home, and cow-dung, mixed with water,

is sprinkled over them by their relations, and poured over the floor

of the hut. In this manner they are purified. Some time during the

seventh month after death, according to another account, the grave,

in which the corpse has been buried, is dug up, and the bones are

carefully collected, and spread out on a layer of sticks arranged

on four stones placed at the corners of a pit. The bones are then

covered with more sticks, and the pile is lighted. The partially burnt

bones are subsequently collected by the eldest son of the deceased,

and carried to the hut in a new pot, which is tied to a branch of a

neighbouring tree. This rite concluded, he bathes, and, on his return,

the adiyanthiram (death ceremony) day is fixed. On this day, the eldest

son removes the pot, and buries it by the side of a stream, near which

a heap of sand is piled up. On this all the agnates pour water three

times, prostrate themselves before it, and disperse. The ceremony is

brought to a close with a square meal. Some time ago an old Nayadi,

who had the reputation of being a good shot, died. His son obtained

a handful of gunpowder from a gun-license holder, and set fire to it

near the grave, with a view to satisfying the soul of the deceased.

The chief gods of the Nayadis are Mallan, Malavazhi, and Parakutti,

to whom offerings of toddy, rice, and the flesh of monkeys are

made. Parakutti it is who aids them in their hunting expeditions,

bringing the game to them, and protecting them from wild beasts. If

they do not succeed in bagging the expected game, they abuse him.

The Nayadis are also ancestor worshippers, and keep representations

of the departed, to which offerings of rice and toddy are made during

the Onam, Vishu, and other festivals. Beneath a mango tree in a paramba

(garden) were forty-four stones set up in a circle round the tree. One

of the stones was a beli-kal (beli stone), such as is placed round

the inner shrines of temples. The remainder resembled survey stones,

but were smaller in size. The stones represented forty-four Nayadis,

who had left the world. On the ceremonial occasions referred to above,

a sheep or fowl is killed, and the blood allowed to fall on them, puja

(worship) is performed, and solemn prayers are offered that the souls

of the departed may protect them against wild beasts and snakes. A

Nayadi asserted that, if he came across a tiger, he would invoke the

aid of his ancestors, and the animal would be rendered harmless.

Whenever the Nayadis labour under any calamity or disease, they

consult the Parayan astrologer. And, when a woman is possessed by

devils, the Parayan is summoned. He is furnished with a thread and

some toddy. Muttering certain prayers to Parakutti and other deities,

he ties the thread round the woman's neck, drinks the toddy, and the

devil leaves her. When a person is believed to be under the influence

of a devil or the evil eye, salt, chillies, tamarind, oil, mustard,

cocoanut, and a few pice (copper coins) in a vessel are waved thrice

round the head of the affected individual, and given to a Nayadi,

whose curse is asked for. There is this peculiarity about a Nayadi's

curse, that it always has the opposite effect. So, when he is asked

to curse one who has given him alms, he does so by invoking misery

and evil upon him. By the Nayadi money is called chembu kasu (copper

coin), food elamattam (exchange of leaves), and having no food nakkan

illa (nothing to lick on). As a protection against snake-bite, the

Nayadis wear a brass toe-ring. And, when engaged in catching rats

in their holes, they wear round the wrist a snake-shaped metal ring,

to render them safe against snakes which may be concealed in the hole.

The Nayadis who live within the jurisdiction of the Kavalapara Nayar

near Shoranur wear the kudumi (front lock of hair), as there are no

Mappillas (Muhammadans) to molest them. The Kavalapara Nayar was

at one time an important chief, and directed all Nambutiri jenmis

(landlords) who held land within his jurisdiction to bind themselves

not to let the land to Mappillas. Nayadis of other parts are not

allowed by the Mappillas to wear the kudumi, and, if they do so,

they are taken for Parayans and professional sorcerers, and beaten.

Some Nayadis have become converts to Christianity, others to

Muhammadanism, and maintain themselves by begging for alms from

Muhammadans. They are called Thoppyitta (cap-wearing) Nayadis.

The priest of the Nayadis is called Muppan. His appointment is

hereditary, and he enquires into all matters affecting the community,

and can excommunicate a guilty person. [119]

Average height, 155 cm.; nasal index, 86.

Nayar.--"The Nayars," Mr. H. A. Stuart writes, [120] "are a Dravidian

caste, or rather a community, for we find several distinct elements

with totally different occupations among the people who call themselves

by this title. The original Nayars were undoubtedly a military body,

holding lands and serving as a militia, but the present Nayar caste

includes persons who, by hereditary occupation, are traders, artisans,

oilmongers, palanquin-bearers, and even barbers and washermen. The

fact seems to be that successive waves of immigration brought from the

Canarese and Tamil countries different castes and different tribes; and

these, settling down in the country, adopted the customs and manners,

and assumed the caste names of the more respectable of the community

that surrounded them. This process of assimilation is going on even

yet. Chettis of Coimbatore, for example, who settled in Palghat and

Valluvanad within living memory, have developed by this time into

Nayars. In the census schedules we find instances in which the males

of a house affix the term Nayar to their names, while the names of the

females end in Chettichi. Gollas entering the country from the north

have similarly, in course of time, assumed Nayar customs and manners,

and are now styled Nayars. Again the rajahs and chieftains of the

country sometimes raised individuals or classes who had rendered them

meritorious service to the rank of Nayars. These men were thereafter

styled Nayars, but formed a separate sub-division with little or no

communion with the rest of the Nayar class, until at least, after

the lapse of generations, when their origin was forgotten. Nayar may

thus at present be considered to be a term almost as wide and general

as Sudra."

According to the Brahman tradition, the Nayar caste is the result of

union between the Nambudris with Deva, Gandharva and Rakshasa women

introduced by Parasurama; and this tradition embodies the undoubted

fact that the caste by its practice of hypergamy has had a very

large infusion of Aryan blood. In origin the Nayars were probably a

race of Dravidian immigrants, who were amongst the first invaders of

Malabar, and as conquerors assumed the position of the governing and

land-owning class. The large admixture of Aryan blood combined with

the physical peculiarities of the country would go far to explain

the very marked difference between the Nayar of the present day and

what may be considered the corresponding Dravidian races in the rest

of the Presidency. [121]

In connection with the former position of the Nayars as protectors

of the State, it is noted by Mr. Logan [122] that "in Johnston's

'Relations of the most famous Kingdom in the world' (1611), there

occurs the following quaintly written account of this protector

guild. 'It is strange to see how ready the Souldiour of this country

is at his Weapons: they are all gentile men, and tearmed Naires. At

seven Years of Age they are put to School to learn the Use of their

Weapons, where, to make them nimble and active, their Sinnewes and

Joints are stretched by skilful Fellows, and annointed with the Oyle

Sesamus [gingelly: Sesamum indicum]: By this annointing they become

so light and nimble that they will winde and turn their Bodies as

if they had no Bones, casting them forward, backward, high and low,

even to the Astonishment of the Beholders. Their continual Delight

is in their Weapon, perswading themselves that no Nation goeth beyond

them in Skill and Dexterity.' And Jonathan Duncan, who visited Malabar

more than once as one of the Commissioners from Bengal in 1792-93,

and afterwards as Governor of Bombay, after quoting the following

lines from Mickle's Camoens, Book VII--

'Poliar the labouring lower clans are named:

By the proud Nayrs the noble rank is claimed;

The toils of culture and of art they scorn:

The shining faulchion brandish'd in the right--

Their left arm wields the target in the fight'--

went on to observe: 'These lines, and especially the two last, contain

a good description of a Nayr, who walks along, holding up his naked

sword with the same kind of unconcern as travellers in other countries

carry in their hands a cane or walking staff. I have observed others

of them have it fastened to their back, the hilt being stuck in their

waist band, and the blade rising up and glittering between their

shoulders' (Asiatic Researches, V. 10, 18). M. Mahé de la Bourdonnais,

who had some experience of their fighting qualities in the field,

thus described them: 'Les Nairs sont de grands hommes basanés, légers,

et vigoureux: Ils n'ont pas d'autre profession que celle des armes,

et seraient de fort bons soldats, s'ils étiaent disciplinés: mais ils

combattent sans ordre, ils prennent la fuite dès qu'on les serre de

près avec quelque supèrioritê; pourtant, s'ils se voient pressés avec

vigueur et qu'ils se croient en danger, ils reviennent à la charge,

et ne se rendent jamais' (M. Esquer, Essai sur les Castes dans l'Inde,

page 181). Finally, the only British General of any note--Sir Hector

Munro--who had ever to face the Nayars in the field, thus wrote of

their modes of fighting:--

'One may as well look for a needle in a Bottle of Hay as any of them in

the daytime, they being lurking behind sand banks and bushes, except

when we are marching towards the Fort, and then they appear like bees

out in the month of June.' 'Besides which,' he continued, 'they point

their guns well, and fire them well also.' (Tellicherry Factory Diary,

March, 1761). They were, in short, brave light troops, excellent in

skirmishing, but their organization into small bodies with discordant

interests unfitted them to repel any serious invasion by an enemy

even moderately well organised. Among other strange Malayali customs,

Sheikh Zin-ud-din [123] noticed the fact that, if a chieftain was

slain, his followers attacked and obstinately persevered in ravaging

the slayer's country, and killing his people till their vengeance was

satisfied. This custom is doubtless that which was described so long

ago as in the ninth century A.D. by two Muhammadans, whose work was

translated by Renaudot (Lond., 1733). 'There are kings who, upon their

accession, observe the following ceremony. A quantity of cooked rice

was spread before the king, and some three or four hundred persons

came of their own accord, and received each a small quantity of rice

from the king's own hands after he himself had eaten some. By eating of

this rice they all engage themselves to burn themselves on the day the

king dies or is slain, and they punctually fulfil their promise.' Men,

who devoted themselves to certain death on great occasions, were termed

Amoucos by the Portuguese; and Barbosa, one of the Portuguese writers,

alluded to the practice as prevalent among the Nayars. Purchas has also

the following:--'The king of Cochin hath a great number of Gentlemen,

which he calleth Amocchi, and some are called Nairi: these two sorts of

men esteem not their lives anything, so that it may be for the honour

of the king.' The proper Malayalam term for such men was Chaver,

literally those who took up, or devoted themselves to death. It was

a custom of the Nayars, which was readily adopted by the Mappillas,

who also at times--as at the great Mahamakkam, twelfth year feast,

at Tirunavayi [124]--devoted themselves to death in the company of

Nayars for the honour of the Valluvanad Raja. And probably the frantic

fanatical rush of the Mappillas on British bayonets, which is not even

yet a thing of the past, is the latest development of this ancient

custom of the Nayars. The martial spirit of the Nayars in these piping

times of peace has quite died out for want of exercise. The Nayar

is more and more becoming a family man. Comparatively few of them

now-a-days even engage in hunting." According to an inscription of the

King Kulottunga I (A.D. 1083-84), he conquered Kudamalai-Nadu, i.e.,

the western hill country (Malabar), whose warriors, the ancestors of

the Nayars of the present day, perished to the last man in defending

their independence. [125]

The following description of the Nayars at the beginning of the

sixteenth century is given by Duarte Barbosa. [126] "The Nairs are

the gentry, and have no other duty than to carry on war, and they

continually carry their arms with them, which are swords, bows, arrows,

bucklers, and lances. They all live with the kings, and some of them

with other lords, relations of the kings, and lords of the country,

and with the salaried governors, and with one another. They are very

smart men, and much taken up with their nobility.... These Nairs,

besides being all of noble descent, have to be armed as knights by

the hand of a king or lord with whom they live, and until they have

been so equipped they cannot bear arms nor call themselves Nairs.... In

general, when they are seven years of age, they are immediately sent to

school to learn all manner of feats of agility and gymnastics for the

use of their weapons. First they learn to dance and then to tumble,

and for that purpose they render supple all their limbs from their

childhood, so that they can bend them in any direction.... These

Nairs live outside the towns separate from other people on their

estates which are fenced in. When they go anywhere, they shout to the

peasants, that they may get out of the way where they have to pass;

and the peasants do so, and, if they did not do it, the Nairs might

kill them without penalty. And, if a peasant were by misfortune to

touch a Nair lady, her relations would immediately kill her, and

likewise the man that touched her and all his relations. This, they

say, is done to avoid all opportunity of mixing the blood with that of

the peasants.... These are very clean and well-dressed women, and they

hold it in great honour to know how to please men. They have a belief

amongst them that the woman who dies a virgin does not go to paradise."

Writing in the eighteenth century, Hamilton states [127] that "it was

an ancient custom for the Samorin (Zamorin) to reign but twelve years,

and no longer. If he died before his term was expired, it saved him

a troublesome ceremony of cutting his own throat on a public scaffold

erected for that purpose. He first made a feast for all his nobility

and gentry, who were very numerous. After the feast he saluted his

guests, went on the scaffold, and very neatly cut his own throat

in the view of the assembly. His body was, a little while after,

burned with great pomp and ceremony, and the grandees elected a new

Samorin. Whether that custom was a religious or a civil ceremony

I know not, but it is now laid aside, and a new custom is followed

by the modern Samorin, that a jubilee is proclaimed throughout his

dominion at the end of twelve years, and a tent is pitched for him in

a spacious plain, and a great feast is celebrated for ten or twelve

days with mirth and jollity, guns firing night and day, so at the

end of the feast any four of the guests that have a mind to gain a

crown by a desperate action in fighting their way through thirty or

forty thousand of his guards, and kill the Samorin in his tent, he

that kills him succeeds him in his empire. In Anno 1695 one of these

jubilees happened, and the tent pitched near Ponnany, a sea-port of

his about fifteen leagues to the southward of Calicut. There were but

three men that would venture on that desperate action, who fell on,

with sword and target, among the guards, and, after they had killed

and wounded many, were themselves killed. One of the desperadoes

had a nephew of fifteen or sixteen years of age that kept close by

his uncle in the attack on the guards, and, when he saw him fall,

the youth got through the guards into the tent, and made a stroke

at his Majesty's head, and had certainly dispatched him if a large

brass lamp which was burning over his head had not marred the blow,

but, before he could make another, he was killed by the guards,

and I believe the same Samorin reigns yet."

It is noted by Sonnerat [128] that the Nayars "are the warriors; they

have also the privilege of enjoying all the women of their caste. Their

arms, which they constantly carry, distinguish them from the other

tribes. They are besides known by their insolent haughtiness. When they

perceive pariahs, they call out to them, even at a great distance,

to get out of their way, and, if any one of these unfortunate people

approaches too near a Nair, and through inadvertence touches him,

the Nair has a right to murder him, which is looked upon as a very

innocent action, and for which no complaint is ever made. It is true

that the pariahs have one day in the year when all the Nairs they

can touch become their slaves, but the Nairs take such precautions to

keep out of the way at the time, that an accident of that kind seldom

happens." It is further recorded by Buchanan [129] that "the whole of

these Nairs formed the militia of Malayala, directed by the Namburis

and governed by the Rajahs. Their chief delight is in arms, but they

are more inclined to use them for assassination or surprise, than in

the open field. Their submission to their superiors was great, but they

exacted deference from those under them with a cruelty and arrogance,

rarely practised but among Hindus in their state of independence. A

Nair was expected to instantly cut down a Tiar or Mucuai, who presumed

to defile him by touching his person; and a similar fate awaited a

slave, who did not turn out of the road as a Nair passed."

Nayar is commonly said to be derived from the Sanskrit Nayaka, a

leader, and to be cognate with Naik, and Nayudu or Naidu. In this

connection, Mr. L. Moore writes [130] that "if a reference is made

to the Anglo-Indian Glossary (Hobson-Jobson) by Yule and Burnell, it

will be found that the term Naik or Nayakan, and the word Nayar are

derived from the same Sanskrit original, and there is a considerable

amount of evidence to show that the Nayars of Malabar are closely

connected by origin with the Nayakans of Vijayanagar. [131] Xavier,

writing in 1542 to 1544, makes frequent references to men whom he

calls Badages, who are said to have been collectors of royal taxes,

and to have grievously oppressed Xavier's converts among the fishermen

of Travancore. [132] Dr. Caldwell, alluding to Xavier's letters, says

[133] that these Badages were no doubt Vadages or men from the North,

and is of opinion that a Jesuit writer of the time who called them

Nayars was mistaken, and that they were really Nayakans from Madura. I

believe, however, that the Jesuit rightly called them Nayars, for I

find that Father Organtino, writing in 1568, speaks of these Badages

as people from Narasinga (a kingdom north of Madura, lying close to

Bishnaghur). [134] Bishnaghur is, of course, Vijayanagar, and the

kingdom of Narasinga was the name frequently given by the Portuguese

to Vijayanagar. Almost every page of Mr. Sewell's interesting book on

Vijayanagar bears testimony to the close connection between Vijayanagar

and the West Coast. Dr. A. C. Burnell tells us that the kings who ruled

Vijayanagar during the latter half of the fourteenth century belonged

to a low non-Aryan caste, namely, that of Canarese cow-herds. [135]

They were therefore closely akin to the Nayars, one of the leading

Rajas among whom at the present time, although officially described

as a Samanta, is in reality of the Eradi, i.e., cow-herd caste. [136]

It is remarkable that Colonel (afterwards Sir Thomas) Munro, in the

memorandum written by him in 1802 [137] on the Poligars of the Ceded

Districts, when dealing with the cases of a number of Poligars who

were direct descendants of men who had been chiefs under the kings

of Vijayanagar, calls them throughout his report Naique or Nair,

using the two names as if they were identical. Further investigation

as to the connection of the Nayars of Malabar with the kingdom of

Vijayanagar would, I believe, lead to interesting results." In the

Journal of the Hon. John Lindsay (1783) it is recorded [138] that "we

received information that our arms were still successful on the Malabar

coast, and that our army was now advancing into the inland country;

whilst the Nayars and Polygars that occupy the jungles and mountains

near Seringapatam, thinking this a favourable opportunity to regain

their former independence, destroyed the open country, and committed

as many acts of barbarity as Hyder's army had done in the Carnatic."

"Some," Mr. N. Subramani Aiyar writes in a note on the Nayars of

Travancore, "believe that Nayar is derived from Naga (serpents),

as the Aryans so termed the earlier settlers of Malabar on account

of the special adoration which they paid to snakes. The Travancore

Nayars are popularly known as Malayala Sudras--a term which contrasts

them sharply with the Pandi or foreign Sudras, of whom a large

number immigrated into Travancore in later times. Another name by

which Nayars are sometimes known is Malayali, but other castes,

which have long inhabited the Malayalam country, can lay claim to

this designation with equal propriety. The most general title of

the Nayars is Pillai (child), which was once added to the names

of the Brahman dwellers in the south. It must, in all probability,

have been after the Brahmans changed their title to Aiyar (father),

by which name the non-Brahman people invariably referred to them,

that Sudras began to be termed Pillai. We find that the Vellalas

of the Tamil country and the Nayars of Travancore called themselves

Pillai from very early times. The formal ceremony of paying down a

sum of money, and obtaining a distinction direct from the Sovereign

was known as tirumukham pitikkuka, or catching the face of the king,

and enabled the recipients to add, besides the honorary suffix Pillai,

the distinctive prefix Kanakku, or accountant, to their name. So

important were the privileges conferred by it that even Sanku Annavi,

a Brahman Dalava, obtained it at the hand of the reigning Maharaja,

and his posterity at Vempannur have enjoyed the distinction until the

present day. The titles Pillai and Kanakku are never used together. The

name of an individual would be, for example, either Krishna Pillai

or Kanakku Raman Krishnan, Raman being the name of the Karanavan or

the maternal uncle. A higher title, Chempakaraman, corresponds to the

knighthood of mediæval times, and was first instituted by Maharaja

Marthanda Varma in memory, it is said, of his great Prime Minister

Rama Aiyyan Dalawa. The individual, whom it was the king's pleasure to

honour, was taken in procession on the back of an elephant through the

four main streets of the fort, and received by the Prime Minister,

seated by his side, and presented with pansupari (betel). Rare as

this investiture is in modern times, there are many ancient houses,

to which this title of distinction is attached in perpetuity. The

title Kanakku is often enjoyed with it, the maternal uncle's name

being dropped, e.g., Kanakku Chempakaraman Krishnan. Tambi (younger

brother) is another title prevalent in Travancore. It is a distinctive

suffix to the names of Nayar sons of Travancore Sovereigns. But, in

ancient times, this title was conferred on others also, in recognition

of merit. Tambis alone proceed in palanquins, and appear before the

Maharaja without a head-dress. The consorts of Maharajas are selected

from these families. If a lady from outside is to be accepted as

consort, she is generally adopted into one of these families. The

title Karta, or doer, appears also to have been used as a titular

name by some of the rulers of Madura. [At the Madras census, 1901,

Kartakkal was returned by Balijas claiming to be descendants of the

Nayak kings of Madura and Tanjore.] The Tekkumkur and Vadakkumkur

Rajas in Malabar are said to have first conferred the title Karta on

certain influential Nayar families. In social matters the authority

of the Karta was supreme, and it was only on important points that

higher authorities were called on to intercede. All the Kartas belong

to the Illam sub-division of the Nayar caste. The title Kuruppu, though

assumed by other castes than Nayars, really denotes an ancient section

of the Nayars, charged with various functions. Some were, for instance,

instructors in the use of arms, while others were superintendents of

maid-servants in the royal household. Writing concerning the Zamorin of

Calicut about 1500 A.D., Barbosa states that "the king has a thousand

waiting women, to whom he gives regular pay, and they are always at

the court to sweep the palaces and houses of the king, and he does

this for the State, because fifty would be enough to sweep." When

a Maharaja of Travancore enters into a matrimonial alliance, it is

a Kuruppu who has to call out the full title of the royal consort,

Panappillai Amma, after the presentation of silk and cloth has been

performed. The title Panikkar is derived from pani, work. It was the

Panikkars who kept kalaris, or gymnastic and military schools, but in

modern times many Panikkars have taken to the teaching of letters. Some

are entirely devoted to temple service, and are consequently regarded

as belonging to a division of Marans, rather than of Nayars. The

title Kaimal is derived from kai, hand, signifying power. In former

times, some Kaimals were recognised chieftains, e.g., the Kaimal

of Vaikkattillam in North Travancore. Others were in charge of the

royal treasury, which, according to custom, could not be seen even

by the kings except in their presence. "Neither could they," Barbosa

writes, "take anything out of the treasury without a great necessity,

and by the counsel of this person and certain others." The titles

Unnithan and Valiyathan were owned by certain families in Central

Travancore, which were wealthy and powerful. They were to some extent

self-constituted justices of the peace, and settled all ordinary

disputes arising in the kara where they dwelt. The title Menavan,

or Menon, means a superior person, and is derived from mel, above,

and avan he. The recipient of the title held it for his lifetime, or

it was bestowed in perpetuity on his family, according to the amount

of money paid down as atiyara. As soon as an individual was made a

Menon, he was presented with an ola (palmyra leaf for writing on)

and an iron style as symbols of the office of accountant, which he was

expected to fill. In British Malabar even now every amsam or revenue

village has an accountant or writer called Menon. The title Menokki,

meaning one who looks over or superintends, is found only in British

Malabar, as it was exclusively a creation of the Zamorin. [They are,

I gather, accountants in temples.]

"There are numerous sub-divisions comprised under the general head

Nayar, of which the most important, mentioned in vernacular books,

are Kiriyam, Illam, Svarupam, Itacheri or Idacheri, Pallichan,

Ashtikkurichchi, Vattakatan, Otatu, Pulikkal, Vyapari, Vilakkitalavan,

and Veluthetan. Of these Ashtikkurichchi and Pulikkal are divisions

of Maran, Vyapari is a division of Chettis, and Vilakkitalavan and

Veluthetan are barbers and washermen respectively.

"The chief divisions of Nayars, as now recognised, are as follows:--

1. Kiriyam, a name said to be a corruption of the Sanskrit griha,

meaning house. This represents the highest class, the members of which

were, in former times, not obliged to serve Brahmans and Kshatriyas.

2. Illakkar.--The word illam indicates a Nambutiri Brahman's house,

and tradition has it that every illam family once served an illam. But,

in mediæval times, any Nayar could get himself recognised as belonging

to the Illam division, provided that a certain sum of money, called

adiyara, was paid to the Government. The Illakkar are prohibited

from the use of fish, flesh, and liquor, but the prohibition is not

at the present day universally respected. In some parts of Malabar,

they have moulded many of their habits in the truly Brahmanical style.

3. Svarupakkar.--Adherents of the Kshatriya families of Travancore. The

members of the highest group, Parur Svarupam, have their purificatory

rites performed by Marans. It is stated that they were once the

Illakkar servants of one Karuttetathu Nambutiri, who was the feudal

lord of Parur, and afterwards became attached to the royal household

which succeeded to that estate, thus becoming Parur Svarupakkar.

4. Padamangalam and Tamil Padam were not originally Nayars,

but immigrants from the Tamil country. They are confined to a few

localities in Travancore, and until recently there was a distinctive

difference in regard to dress and ornaments between the Tamil Padam

and the ordinary Nayars. The occupation of the Padamangalakkar is

temple service, such as sweeping, carrying lamps during processions,

etc. The Tamil Padakkar are believed to have taken to various kinds

of occupation, and, for this reason, to have become merged with

other sections.

5. Vathi or Vatti.--This name is not found in the Jatinirnaya,

probably because it had not been differentiated from Maran. The

word is a corruption of vazhti, meaning praying for happiness, and

refers to their traditional occupation. They use a peculiar drum,

called nantuni. Some call themselves Daivampatis, or wards of God,

and follow the makkathayam system of inheritance (in the male line).

6. Itacheri or Idacheri, also called Pantaris in South Travancore. They

are herdsmen, and vendors of milk, butter and curds. The name suggests

a relation of some kind to the Idaiyan caste of the Tamil country.

7. Karuvelam, known also by other names, such as Kappiyara and

Tiruvattar. Their occupation is service in the palace of the Maharaja,

and they are the custodians of his treasury and valuables. Fifty-two

families are believed to have been originally brought from Kolathanad,

when a member thereof was adopted into the Travancore royal family.

8. Arikuravan.--A name, meaning those who reduced the quantity of rice

out of the paddy given to them to husk at the temple of Kazhayakkuttam

near Trivandrum, by which they were accosted by the local chieftain.

9. Pallichchan.--Bearers of palanquins for Brahmans and Malabar

chieftains. They are also employed as their attendants, to carry

their sword and shield before them.

10. Vandikkaran.--A name, meaning cartmen, for those who supply fuel

to temples, and cleanse the vessels belonging thereto.

11. Kuttina.--The only heiress of a Svarupam tarwad is said to

have been a maid-servant in the Vadakketam Brahman's house, and her

daughter's tali-kettu ceremony to have been celebrated in her master's

newly-built cowshed. The bride was called kuttilachchi, or bride

in a cowshed, and her descendants were named Kuttina Nayars. They

intermarry among themselves, and, having no priests of their own,

obtain purified water from Brahmans to remove the effects of pollution.

12. Matavar.--Also known as Puliyattu, Veliyattu, and Kallur

Nayars. They are believed to have been good archers in former times.

13. Otatu, also called Kusa. Their occupation is to tile or thatch

temples and Brahman houses.

14. Mantalayi.--A tract of land in the Kalkulam taluk, called

Mantalachchi Konam, was granted to them by the State. They are paid

mourners, and attend at the Trivandrum palace when a death occurs in

the royal family.

15. Manigramam.--Believed to represent Hindu recoveries from early

conversion to Christianity. Manigramam was a portion of Cranganore,

where early Christian immigrants settled.

16. Vattaykkatan, better known in Travancore as Chakala Nayars, form

in many respects the lowest sub-division. They are obliged to stand

outside the sacrificial stones (balikallu) of a sanctuary, and are not

allowed to take the title Pillai. Pulva is a title of distinction among

them. One section of them is engaged in the hereditary occupation of

oil-pressing, and occupies a lower position in the social scale than

the other."

The following list of "clans" among the Nayars of Malabar whom he

examined anthropometrically is given by Mr. F. Fawcett [139]:--

Kiriyattil. Vangiloth.

Sudra. Kitavu.

Kurup. Pallichan.

Nambiyar. Muppathinayiran.

Urali. Viyapari or Ravari.

Nallioden. Attikurissi.

Viyyur. Manavalan.

Akattu Charna. Adungadi.

Purattu Charna. Adiodi.

Vattakkad. Amayengolam.

"The Kurup, Nambiyar Viyyur, Manavalan, Vengolan, Nellioden,

Adungadi, Kitavu, Adiodi, Amayengolam, all superior clans,

belong, properly speaking, to North Malabar. The Kiriyattil,

or Kiriyam, is the highest of all the clans in South Malabar,

and is supposed to comprise, or correspond with the group of

clans first named from North Malabar. The Akattu Charna clan is

divided into two sub-clans, one of which looks to the Zamorin

as their lord, and the other owns lordship to minor lordlings,

as the Tirumulpad of Nilambur. The former are superior, and a

woman of the latter may mate with a man of the former, but not

vice versâ. In the old days, every Nayar chief had his Charnavar,

or adherents. The Purattu Charna are the outside adherents,

or fighters and so on, and the Akattu Charna are the inside

adherents--clerks and domestics. The clan from which the former

were drawn is superior to the latter. The Uralis are said to have

been masons; the Pallichans manchil bearers. [140] The Sudra

clan supplies female servants in the houses of Nambudiris. The

Vattakkad (or Chakkingal: chakku, oil press) clan, whose proper

métier is producing gingelly or cocoanut oil with the oil-mill,

is the lowest of all, excepting, I think, the Pallichan. Indeed,

in North Malabar, I have frequently been told by Nayars of the

superior clans that they do not admit the Vattakkad to be Nayars,

and say that they have adopted the honorary affix Nayars to

their names quite recently. There is some obscurity as regards

the sub-divisions of the Vattakkad clan. To the north of Calicut,

in Kurumbranad, they are divided into the Undiatuna, or those who

pull (to work the oil-machine by hand), and the Murivechchu-atune,

or those who tie or fasten bullocks, to work the oil-machine. Yet

further north, at Tellicherry and thereabouts, there are no

known sub-divisions, while in Ernad, to the eastward, the clan

is divided into the Veluttatu (white) and Karuttatu (black). The

white have nothing to do with the expression and preparation of

oil, which is the hereditary occupation of the black. The white

may eat with Nayars of any clan; the black can eat with no others

outside their own clan. The black sub-clan is strictly endogamous;

the other, the superior sub-clan, is not. Their women may marry

men of any other clan, the Pallichchan excepted. Union by marriage,

or whatever the function may be named, is permissible between most

of the other clans, the rule by which a woman may never unite

herself with her inferior being always observed. She may unite

herself with a man of her own clan, or with a man of any superior

clan, or with a Nambutiri, an Embrantiri, or any other Brahman,

or with one of the small sects coming between the Brahmans and

the Nayars. But she cannot under any circumstances unite herself

with a man of a clan, which is inferior to hers. Nor can she eat

with those of a clan inferior to her; a man may, and does without

restriction. Her children by an equal in race and not only in mere

social standing, but never those by one who is racially inferior,

belong to her taravad. [141] The children of the inferior mothers

are never brought into the taravad of the superior fathers,

i.e., they are never brought into it to belong to it, but they

may live there. And, where they do so, they cannot enter the

taravad kitchen, or touch the women while they are eating. Nor

are they allowed to touch their father's corpse. They may live

in the taravad under these and other disabilities, but are never

of it. The custom, which permits a man to cohabit with a woman

lower in the social scale than himself, and prohibits a woman from

exercising the same liberty, is called the rule of anulomam and

pratilomam. Dr. Gundert derives anulomam from anu, with lomam

(romam), hair, or going with the hair or grain. So pratilomam

means going against the hair or grain. According to this usage,

a Nayar woman, consorting with a man of a higher caste, follows

the hair, purifies the blood, and raises the progeny in social

estimation. By cohabitation with a man of a lower division (clan)

or caste, she is guilty of pratilomam, and, if the difference of

caste were admittedly great, she would be turned out of her family,

to prevent the whole family being boycotted. A corollary of this

custom is that a Nambutiri Brahman father cannot touch his own

children by his Nayar consort without bathing afterwards to remove

pollution. The children in the marumakkatayam family belong,

of course, to their mother's family, clan, and caste. They are

Nayars, not Nambutiris. The Nayars of North Malabar are held to

be superior all along the line, clan for clan, to those of South

Malabar, which is divided from the north by the river Korapuzha,

seven miles north of Calicut, so that a woman of North Malabar

would not unite herself to a man of her own clan name of South

Malabar. A Nayar woman of North Malabar cannot pass northward

beyond the frontier; she cannot pass the hills to the eastward; and

she cannot cross the Korapuzha to the south. It is tabu. The women

of South Malabar are similarly confined by custom, breach of which

involves forfeiture of caste. To this rule there is an exception,

and of late years the world has come in touch with the Malayali,

who nowadays goes to the University, studies medicine and law in

the Presidency town (Madras), or even in far off England. Women

of the relatively inferior Akattu Charna clan are not under quite

the same restrictions as regards residence as are those of most

of the other clans; so, in these days of free communications, when

Malayalis travel, and frequently reside far from their own country,

they often prefer to select wives from this Akattu Charna clan. But

the old order changeth everywhere, and nowadays Malayalis who are in

the Government service, and obliged to reside far away from Malabar,

and a few who have taken up their abode in the Presidency town,

have wrenched themselves free of the bonds of custom, and taken with

them their wives who are of clans other than the Akattu Charna. The

interdiction to travel, and the possible exception to it in the case of

Akattu Charna women, has been explained to me in this way. The Nayar

woman observes pollution for three days during menstruation. While

in her period, she may not eat or drink with any other member of the

taravad, and on the fourth day she must be purified. Purification is

known as mattu (change), and it is effected by the washerwoman, who,

in some parts of South Malabar, is of the Mannan or Vannan caste,

whose métier is to wash for the Nayars and Nambutiris, but who is,

as a rule, the washerwoman of the Tiyan caste, giving her, after

her bath, one of her own cloths to wear (mattu, change of raiment)

instead of the soiled cloth, which she takes away to wash. Pollution,

which may come through a death in the family, through child-birth,

or menstruation, must be removed by mattu. Until it is done, the woman

is out of caste. It must be done in the right way at the right moment,

under pain of the most unpleasant social consequences. How that the

influential rural local magnate wreaks vengeance on a taravad by

preventing the right person giving mattu to the women is well known

in Malabar. He could not, with all the sections of the Penal Code at

his disposal, inflict greater injury. Now the Nayar woman is said to

feel compelled to remain in Malabar, or within her own part of it,

in order to be within reach of mattu. My informant tells me that,

the Vannan caste being peculiar to Malabar, the Nayar women cannot go

where these are not to be found, and that mattu must be done by one

of that caste. But I know, from my own observation in the most truly

conservative localities, in Kurumbranad for example, where the Nayar

has a relative superiority, that the washerman is as a rule a Tiyan;

and I cannot but think that the interdiction has other roots than

those involved in mattu. It does not account for the superstition

against crossing water, which has its counterparts elsewhere in the

world. The origin of the interdiction to cross the river southwards

has been explained to me as emanating from a command of the Kolatirri

Rajah in days gone by, when, the Arabs having come to the country about

Calicut, there was a chance of the women being seized and taken as

wives. The explanation is somewhat fanciful. The prohibition to cross

the river to the northwards is supposed to have originated in much

the same way. As bearing on this point, I may mention that the Nayar

women living to the east of Calicut cannot cross the river backwater,

and come into the town." It may be noted in this connection that the

Paikara river on the Nilgiri hills is sacred to the Todas, and, for

fear of mishap from arousing the wrath of the river-god, a pregnant

Toda woman will not venture to cross it. No Toda will use the river

water for any purpose, and they do not touch it, unless they have to

ford it. They then walk through it, and, on reaching the opposite bank,

bow their heads. Even when they walk over the Paikara bridge, they

take their hands out of the putkuli (body-cloth) as a mark of respect.

The complexity of the sub-divisions among the Nayars in North Malabar

is made manifest by the following account thereof in the Gazetteer of

Malabar. "There are exogamous sub-divisions (perhaps corresponding to

original tarwads) called kulams, and these are grouped to form the

sub-castes which are usually endogamous. It is quite impossible to

attempt a complete account of the scheme, but to give some idea of

its nature one example may be taken, and dealt with in some detail;

and for this purpose the portion of Kurumbranad known as Payyanad

will serve. This is the country between the Kottapuzha and Porapuzha

rivers, and is said to have been given by a Raja of Kurumbranad to

a certain Ambadi Kovilagam Tamburatti (the stanam or title of the

senior lady of the Zamorin Raja's family). In this tract or nad there

were originally six stanis or chieftains, who ruled, under the Raja,

with the assistance, or subject to the constitutional control, of four

assemblies of Nayars called Kuttams. Each kuttam had its hereditary

president. In this tract there are seven groups of kulams. The highest

includes twelve kulams, Vengalat, Pattillat, Viyyur, Nelliot, Atunkudi,

Amayangalat, Nelloli, Nilancheri, Rendillat, Pulliyani, Orakatteri,

and Venmeri. Of these, the Pattillat and Rendillat (members of the

ten and members of the two illams or houses) affix the title Adiyodi

to their names, the last three affix the title Nambiyar, and the rest

affix Nayar. Of the six stanis already mentioned, three, with the title

of Adiyodi, belong to the Vengalat kulam, while two of the presidents

of kuttams belonged to the Pattillat kulam. The younger members of

the stani houses are called kidavu. It is the duty of women of Viyyur

and Nelliot kulams to join in the bridal procession of members of the

Vengalat kulam, the former carrying lamps, and the latter salvers

containing flowers, while the Rendillat Adiyodis furnish cooks to

the same class. Pattillat Adiyodis and Orakatteri Nambiyars observe

twelve days' pollution, while all the other kulams observe fifteen. The

second group consists of six kulams, Eravattur, Ara-Eravattur (or half

Eravattur), and Attikodan Nayars, Tonderi Kidavus, Punnan Nambiyars,

and Menokkis. All these observe fifteen days' pollution. The third

group consists of three kulams, Taccholi to which the remaining

three stanis belong, Kotholi, and Kuruvattancheri. All affix Nayar to

their names, and observe fifteen days' pollution. The fourth group

consists of three kulams, Peruvanian Nambiyars, Chelladan Nayars,

and Vennapalan Nayars. All three observe fifteen days' pollution. The

name Peruvanian means great or principal oil-man; and it is the duty of

this caste to present the Kurumbranad Raja with oil on the occasion of

his formal installation. The fifth group consists of the three kulams,

Mannangazhi, Paramchela, and Pallikara Nayars, all observing fifteen

days' pollution. A member of the first-named class has to place an

amanapalaga (the traditional seat of Nambudiris and other high castes)

for the Kurumbranad Raja to sit on at the time of his installation,

while a member of the second has to present him with a cloth on

the same occasion. The sixth group consists of four kiriyams named

Patam, Tulu, Manan, and Ottu respectively, and has the collective

name of Ravari. The seventh group consists of six kulams, Kandon,

Kannankodan, Kotta, Karumba, Kundakollavan, and Panakadan Nayars. All

observe fifteen days' pollution, and the women of these six kulams

have certain duties to perform in connection with the purification

of women of the Vengalat, Pattillat, and Orakatteri kulams. Besides

these seven groups, there are a few other classes without internal

sub-divisions. One such class is known as Pappini Nayar. A woman of

this class takes the part of the Brahmini woman (Nambissan) at the

tali-kettu kalyanam of girls belonging to the kulams included in the

third group. Another class called Palattavan takes the place of the

Attikurissi Nayar at the funeral ceremonies of the same three kulams."

In illustration of the custom of polyandry among the Nayars of

Malabar in by-gone days, the following extracts may be quoted. "On

the continent of India," it is recorded in Ellis' edition of the

Kural, "polyandry is still said to be practiced in Orissa, and among

particular tribes in other parts. In Malayalam, as is well known, the

vision of Plato in his ideal republic is more completely realised, the

women among the Nayars not being restricted to family or number, but,

after she has been consecrated by the usual rites before the nuptial

fire, in which ceremony any indifferent person may officiate as the

representative of her husband, being in her intercourse with the other

sex only restrained by her inclinations; provided that the male with

whom she associates be of an equal or superior tribe. But it must be

stated, for the glory of the female character, that, notwithstanding

the latitude thus given to the Nayattis, and that they are thus left

to the guidance of their own free will and the play of their own

fancy (which in other countries has not always been found the most

efficient check on the conduct of either sex), it rarely happens that

they cohabit with more than one person at the same time. Whenever the

existing connexion is broken, whether from incompatibility of temper,

disgust, caprice, or any of the thousand vexations by which from the

frailty of nature domestic happiness is liable to be disturbed, the

woman seeks another lover, the man another mistress. But it mostly

happens that the bond of paternity is here, as elsewhere, too strong

to be shaken off, and that the uninfluenced and uninterested union

of love, when formed in youth, continues even in the decline of age."

In a note on the Nayars in the sixteenth century, Cæsar Fredericke

writes as follows. [142] "These Nairi having their wives common

amongst themselves, and when any of them goe into the house of any

of these women, he leaveth his sworde and target at the door, and the

time that he is there, there dare not be any so hardie as to come into

that house. The king's children shall not inherite the kingdom after

their father, because they hold this opinion, that perchance they

were not begotten of the king their father, but of some other man,

therefore they accept for their king one of the sonnes of the king's

sisters, or of some other woman of the blood roiall, for that they

be sure that they are of the blood roiall."

In his "New Account of the East Indies, (1727)" Hamilton wrote:

"The husbands," of whom, he said, there might be twelve, but no more

at one time, "agree very well, for they cohabit with her in their

turns, according to their priority of marriage, ten days more or

less according as they can fix a term among themselves, and he that

cohabits with her maintains her in all things necessary for his time,

so that she is plentifully provided for by a constant circulation. When

the man that cohabits with her goes into her house he leaves his arms

at the door, and none dare remove them or enter the house on pain of

death. When she proves with child, she nominates its father, who takes

care of his education after she has suckled it, and brought it to walk

or speak, but the children are never heirs to their father's estate,

but the father's sister's children are."

Writing in the latter half of the eighteenth century, Grose says [143]

that "it is among the Nairs that principally prevails the strange

custom of one wife being common to a number; in which point the

great power of custom is seen from its rarely or never producing any

jealousies or quarrels among the co-tenants of the same woman. Their

number is not so much limited by any specific law as by a kind of

tacit convention, it scarcely ever happening that it exceeds six or

seven. The woman, however, is under no obligation to admit above a

single attachment, though not less respected for using her privilege

to its utmost extent. If one of the husbands happens to come to the

house when she is employed with another, he knows that circumstance by

certain signals left at the door that his turn is not come, and departs

very resignedly." Writing about the same time, Sonnerat [144] says

that "these Brahmans do not marry, but have the privilege of enjoying

all the Nairesses. This privilege the Portuguese who were esteemed

as a great caste, obtained and preserved, till their drunkenness and

debauchery betrayed them into a commerce with all sorts of women. The

following right is established by the customs of the country. A

woman without shame may abandon herself to all men who are not of an

inferior caste to her own, because the children (notwithstanding what

Mr. de Voltaire says) do not belong to the father, but to the mother's

brother; they become his legitimate heirs at their birth, even of

the crown if he is king." In his 'Voyages and Travels', Kerr writes

as follows. [145] "By the laws of their country these Nayres cannot

marry, so that no one has any certain or acknowledged son or father;

all their children being born of mistresses, with each of whom three

or four Nayres cohabit by agreement among themselves. Each one of

this cofraternity dwells a day in his turn with the joint mistress,

counting from noon of one day to the same time of the next, after

which he departs, and another comes for the like time. Thus they

spend their time without the care or trouble of wives and children,

yet maintain their mistresses well according to their rank. Any

one may forsake his mistress at his pleasure; and, in like manner,

the mistress may refuse admittance to any one of her lovers when she

pleases. These mistresses are all gentlewomen of the Nayre caste, and

the Nayres, besides being prohibited from marrying, must not attach

themselves to any woman of a different rank. Considering that there are

always several men attached to one woman, the Nayres never look upon

any of the children born of their mistresses as belonging to them,

however strong a resemblance may subsist, and all inheritances among

the Nayres go to their brothers, or the sons of their sisters, born

of the same mothers, all relationship being counted only by female

consanguinity and descent. This strange law prohibiting marriage

was established that they might have neither wives nor children on

whom to fix their love and attachment; and that, being free from all

family cares, they might more willingly devote themselves entirely

to warlike service." The term son of ten fathers is used as a term

of abuse among Nayars to this day. [146] Tipu Sultan is said to have

issued the following proclamation to the Nayars, on the occasion of

his visit to Calicut in 1788. "And, since it is a practice with you

for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers

and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence

all born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connections than

the beasts of the field; I hereby require you to forsake these sinful

practices, and live like the rest of mankind." [147]

As to the present existence or non-existence of polyandry I must

call recent writers into the witness-box. The Rev. S. Mateer,

Mr. Fawcett writes, [148] "informed me ten years ago--he was speaking

of polyandry among the Nayars of Travancore--that he had 'known an

instance of six brothers keeping two women, four husbands to one,

and two to the other. In a case where two brothers cohabited with

one woman, and one was converted to Christianity, the other brother

was indignant at the Christian's refusal to live any longer in this

condition.' I have not known an admitted instance of polyandry amongst

the Nayars of Malabar at the present day, but there is no doubt that,

if it does not exist now (and I think it does here and there), it

certainly did not long ago." Mr. Gopal Panikkar says [149] that "to

enforce this social edict upon the Nairs, the Brahmans made use of

the powerful weapon of their aristocratic ascendancy in the country,

and the Nairs readily submitted to the Brahman supremacy. Thus it

came about that the custom of concubinage, so freely indulged in

by the Brahmans with Nair women, obtained such firm hold upon the

country that it has only been strengthened by the lapse of time. At

the present day there are families, especially in the interior

of the district, who look upon it as an honour to be thus united

with Brahmans. But a reaction has begun to take place against this

feeling, and Brahman alliances are invariably looked down upon in

respectable Nair tarwads. This reactionary feeling took shape in the

Malabar Marriage Act." Mr. Justice K. Narayana Marar says: "There is

nothing strange or to be ashamed of in the fact that the Nayars were

originally of a stock that practiced polyandry, nor if the practice

continued till recently. Hamilton and Buchanan say that, among the

Nayars of Malabar, a woman has several husbands, but these are not

brothers. These travellers came to Malabar in the eighteenth and the

beginning of the nineteenth century. There is no reason whatever to

suppose that they were not just recording what they saw. For I am

not quite sure whether, even now, the practice is not lurking in some

remote nooks and corners of the country." Lastly, Mr. Wigram writes as

follows. [150] "Polyandry may now be said to be dead, and, although the

issue of a Nayar marriage are still children of their mother rather

than of their father, marriage may be defined as a contract based

on mutual consent, and dissoluble at will. It has been well said

(by Mr. Logan) that nowhere is the marriage tie, albeit informal,

more rigidly observed or respected than it is in Malabar: nowhere is

it more jealously guarded, or its neglect more savagely avenged."

In connection with the tali-kattu kalyanam, or tali-tying marriage,

Mr. Fawcett writes that "the details of this ceremony vary in different

parts of Malabar, but the ceremony in some form is essential, and must

be performed for every Nayar girl before she attains puberty." For

an account of this ceremony, I must resort to the evidence of

Mr. K. R. Krishna Menon before the Malabar Marriage Commission. [151]

"The tali-kattu kalyanam is somewhat analogous to what a deva-dasi

(dancing-girl) of other countries (districts) undergoes before she

begins her profession. Among royal families, and those of certain

Edaprabhus, a Kshatriya, and among the Charna sect a Nedungadi is

invited to the girl's house at an auspicious hour appointed for the

purpose, and, in the presence of friends and castemen, ties a tali

(marriage badge) round her neck, and goes away after receiving a

certain fee for his trouble. Among the other sects, the horoscope of

the girl is examined along with those of her enangan (a recognised

member of one's own class) families, and the boy whose horoscope is

found to agree with hers is marked out as a fit person to tie the tali,

and a day is fixed for the tali-tying ceremony by the astrologer, and

information given to the Karanavan [152] (senior male in a tarwad)

of the boy's family. The feast is called ayaniunu, and the boy is

thenceforth called Manavalan or Pillai (bridegroom). From the house in

which the Manavalan is entertained a procession is formed, preceded

by men with swords, and shields shouting a kind of war-cry. In the

meantime a procession starts from the girl's house, with similar men

and cries, and headed by a member of her tarwad, to meet the other

procession, and, after meeting the Manavalan, he escorts him to

the girl's house. After entering the booth erected for the purpose,

he is conducted to a seat of honour, and his feet are washed by the

brother of the girl, who receives a pair of cloths. The Manavalan is

then taken to the centre of the booth, where bamboo mats, carpets and

white cloths are spread, and seated there. The brother of the girl

then carries her from inside the house, and, after going round the

booth three times, places her at the left side of the Manavalan. The

father of the girl then presents new cloths tied in a kambli (blanket)

to the pair, and with this new cloth (called manthravadi) they change

their dress. The wife of the Karanavan of the girl's tarwad, if she

be of the same caste, then decorates the girl by putting on anklets,

etc. The purohit (officiating priest) called Elayath (a low class

of Brahmans) then gives the tali to the Manavalan, and the family

astrologer shouts muhurtham (auspicious hour), and the Manavalan,

putting his sword on the lap, ties the tali round the neck of the

girl, who is then required to hold an arrow and a looking-glass in

her hand. In rich families a Brahmani sings certain songs intended to

bless the couple. In ordinary families who cannot procure her presence,

a Nayar, versed in songs, performs the office. The boy and girl are

then carried by enangans to a decorated apartment in the inner part of

the house, where they are required to remain under a sort of pollution

for three days. On the fourth day they bathe in some neighbouring

tank (pond) or river, holding each other's hands. After changing

their clothes they come home, preceded by a procession. Tom-toms

(native drums) and elephants usually form part of the procession,

and turmeric water is sprinkled. When they come home, all doors

of the house are shut, and the Manavalan is required to force them

open. He then enters the house, and takes his seat in the northern

wing thereof. The aunt and female friends of the girl then approach,

and give sweetmeats to the couple. The girl then serves food to

the boy, and, after taking their meal together from the same leaf,

they proceed to the booth, where a cloth is severed into two parts,

and each part given to the Manavalan and girl separately in the

presence of enangans and friends. The severing of the cloth is

supposed to constitute a divorce." "The tearing of the cloth,"

Mr. Fawcett writes, "is confined to South Malabar. These are the

essentials of the ceremony, an adjunct to which is that, in spite of

the divorce, the girl observes death pollution when her Manavalan

dies. The same Manavalan may tie the tali on any number of girls,

during the same ceremony or at any other time, and he may be old

or young. He is often an elderly holy Brahman, who receives a small

present for his services. The girl may remove the tali, if she likes,

after the fourth day. In some parts of Malabar there is no doubt that

the man who performs the rôle of Manavalan is considered to have some

right to the girl, but in such case it has been already considered

that he is a proper man to enter into sambandham with her."

Of the tali-kattu kalyanam in Malabar, the following detailed

account, mainly furnished by an Urali Nayar of Calicut, is given

in the Gazetteer of Malabar. "An auspicious time has to be selected

for the purpose, and the preliminary consultation of the astrologer

is in itself the occasion of a family gathering. The Manavalan

or quasi-bridegroom is chosen at the same time. For the actual

kalyanam, two pandals (booths), a small one inside a large one,

are erected in front of the padinhatta macchu or central room of the

western wing. They are decorated with cloth, garlands, lamps and palm

leaves, and the pillars should be of areca palm cut by an Asari on

Sunday, Monday, or Wednesday. The first day's ceremonies open with

a morning visit to the temple, where the officiating Brahman pours

water sanctified by mantrams (religious formulæ), and the addition

of leaves of mango, peepul and darbha, over the girl's head. This

rite is called kalasam maduga. The girl then goes home, and is taken

to the macchu, where a hanging lamp with five wicks is lighted. This

should be kept alight during all the days of the kalyanam. The girl

sits on a piece of pala (Alstonia scholaris) wood, which is called a

mana. She is elaborately adorned, and some castes consider a coral

necklace an essential. In her right hand she holds a vaalkannadi

(brass hand mirror), and in her left a charakkal (a highly ornate

arrow). In front of the girl are placed, in addition to the five-wicked

lamp and nirachaveppu, a metal dish or talam of parched rice, and the

eight lucky things known as ashtamangalyam. A woman, termed Brahmini

or Pushpini, usually of the Nambissan caste, sits facing her on a

three-legged stool (pidam), and renders appropriate and lengthy songs,

at the close of which she scatters rice over her. About midday there

is a feast, and in the evening songs in the macchu are repeated. Next

morning, the ceremonial in the macchu is repeated for the third time,

after which the paraphernalia are removed to the nearest tank or to

the east of the household well, where the Pushpini sings once more,

goes through the form of making the girl's toilet, and ties a cocoanut

frond round each of her wrists (kappola). The girl has then to rise and

jump over a kindi (vessel) of water with an unhusked cocoanut placed

on the top, overturning it the third time. The party then proceed

to the pandal, two men holding a scarlet cloth over the girl as a

canopy, and a Chaliyan (weaver) brings two cloths (kodi vastiram),

which the girl puts on. In the evening, the previous day's ceremonial

is repeated in the macchu. The third day is the most important, and it

is then that the central act of the ceremony is performed. For this

the girl sits in the inner pandal richly adorned. In some cases she

is carried from the house to the pandal by her karnavan or brother,

who makes a number of pradakshinams round the pandal (usually 3 or 7)

before he places her in her seat. Before the girl are the various

objects already specified, and the hymeneal ditties of the Pushpini

open the proceedings. At the auspicious moment the Manavalan arrives in

rich attire. He is often preceded by a sort of body guard with sword

and shield who utter a curious kind of cry, and is met at the gate of

the girl's house by a bevy of matrons with lamps and salvers decorated

with flowers and lights, called talams. A man of the girl's family

washes his feet, and he takes his seat in the pandal on the girl's

right. Sometimes the girl's father at this stage presents new cloths

(mantravadi or mantrokodi) to the pair, who at once don them. The

girl's father takes the tali, a small round plate of gold about the

size of a two-anna bit, with a hole at the top, from the goldsmith who

is in waiting, pays him for it,' and gives it to the Manavalan. The

karnavan or father of the girl asks the astrologer thrice if the

moment has arrived, and, as he signifies his assent the third time,

the Manavalan ties the tali round the girl's neck amidst the shouts of

those present. The Manavalan carries the girl indoors to the macchu,

and feasting brings the day to a close. Tom-toming and other music

are of course incessant accompaniments throughout as on other festal

occasions, and the women in attendance keep up a curious kind of

whistling, called kurava, beating their lips with their fingers. On

the fourth day, girl and Manavalan go in procession to the temple

richly dressed. The boy, carrying some sort of sword and shield,

heads the party. If the family be one of position, he and the girl

must be mounted on an elephant. Offerings are made, to the deity,

and presents to the Brahmans. They return home, and, as they enter

the house, the Manavalan who brings up the rear is pelted by the boys

of the party with plantains, which he wards off with his shield. In

other cases, he is expected to make a pretence of forcing the door

open. These two usages are no doubt to be classed with those marriage

ceremonies which take the form of a contest between the bridegroom and

the bride's relatives, and which are symbolic survivals of marriage

by capture. The Manavalan and the girl next partake of food together

in the inner pandal--a proceeding which obviously corresponds to

the ceremonious first meal of a newly-married couple. The assembled

guests are lavishly entertained. The chief Kovilagans and big Nayar

houses will feed 1,000 Brahmans as well as their own relations, and

spend anything up to ten or fifteen thousand rupees on the ceremony."

Concerning the tali-kettu ceremony in Travancore Mr. N. Subramani

Aiyar writes as follows. "After the age of eleven, a Nayar girl

becomes too old for this ceremony, though, in some rare instances,

it is celebrated after a girl attains her age. As among other castes,

ages represented by an odd number, e.g., seven, nine, and eleven,

have a peculiar auspiciousness attached to them. Any number of girls,

even up to a dozen, may go through the ceremony at one time, and

they may include infants under one year--an arrangement prompted by

considerations of economy, and rendered possible by the fact that

no civil or religious right or liability is contracted as between

the parties. The duty of getting the girls of the tarwad 'married'

devolves on the karanavan, or in his default on the eldest brother,

the father's obligation being discharged by informing him that the

time for the ceremony has arrived. The masters of the ceremonies at a

Nayar tali-kettu in Travancore are called Machchampikkar, i.e., men

in the village, whose social status is equal to that of the tarwad

in which the ceremony is to be celebrated. At a preliminary meeting

of the Machchampikkar, the number of girls for whom the ceremony is

to be performed, the bridegrooms, and other details are settled. The

horoscopes are examined by the village astrologer, and those youths in

the tarwads who have passed the age of eighteen, and whose horoscopes

agree with those of the girls, are declared to be eligible. The ola

(palm-leaf) on which the Kaniyan (astrologer) writes his decision is

called the muhurta charutu, and the individual who receives it from him

is obliged to see that the ceremony is performed on an auspicious day

in the near future. The next important item is the fixing of a wooden

post in the south-west corner or kannimula of the courtyard. At the

construction of the pandal (booth) the Pidakakkar or villagers render

substantial aid. The mandapa is decorated with ears of corn, and hence

called katirmandapa. It is also called mullapandal. On the night of

the previous day the kalati or Brahman's song is sung. A sumptuous

banquet, called ayaniunnu, is given at the girl's house to the party

of the young man. The ceremony commences with the bridegroom washing

his feet, and taking his seat within the pandal. The girl meanwhile

bathes, worships the household deity, and is dressed in new cloths

and adorned with costly ornaments. A Brahman woman ties a thread

round the girl's left wrist, and sings a song called Subhadraveli,

which deals with the marriage by capture of Subhadra by Arjuna. Then,

on the invitation of the girl's mother, who throws a garland round

his neck, the bridegroom goes in procession, riding on an elephant,

or on foot. The girl's brother is waiting to receive him at the

pandal. A leading villager is presented with some money, as if to

recompense him for the permission granted by him to commence the

ceremony. The girl sits within the mandapa, facing the east, with her

eyes closed. The bridegroom, on his arrival, sits on her right. He

then receives the minnu (ornament) from the Ilayatu priest, and ties

it round the girl's neck. A song is sung called ammachampattu, or the

song of the maternal uncle. If there are several brides, they sit in

a row, each holding in her hand an arrow and a looking-glass, and the

ornaments are tied on their necks in the order of their ages. Unless

enangans are employed, there is usually only one tali-tier, whatever

may be the number of girls. In cases where, owing to poverty, the

expenses of the ceremony cannot be borne, it is simply performed in

front of a Brahman temple, or in the pandaramatam, or house of the

village chieftain. In many North Travancore taluks the girl removes

her tali as soon as she hears of the tali-tier's death." It is noted

by the Rev. S. Mateer [153] that "a Nair girl of Travancore must get

married with the tali before the age of eleven to avoid reproach

from friends and neighbours. In case of need a sword may even be

made to represent a bridegroom." Sometimes, when a family is poor,

the girl's mother makes an idol of clay, adorns it with flowers,

and invests her daughter with the tali in the presence of the idol.