exercises general social control over a group, known as a guddem,
ordinarily of about twenty huts. He decides social questions,
sometimes on his own responsibility, by excommunicating or fining;
sometimes acting on the advice of a council of his castemen. Until
quite recently, the tribe remained under the guidance of a hereditary
leader of Sriharikota, who wielded immense power. The Paraiyans
have risen superior to the Yanadis as a community, supplying among
themselves their own artisans, weavers, carpenters, barbers, priests,
teachers, etc., while the Yanadis are only just beginning to move in
this direction.
The language of the Yanadis is Telugu, but some words are compounds
of Telugu and Tamil, e.g., artichedi for plantain, pandikutti for pig.
The Yanadis know the forest flora well, and the uses of the various
trees and shrubs, which yield good firewood, etc. They call the roller
(Coracias indica) the milk bird, in the belief that, when a cow goes
dry, she will yield milk if a feather of the roller is put in the
grass for her to swallow. The crow-pheasant (Centropus sinensis)
is to them the prickly-pear crow; florikin the ground peacock; the
fan-tail snipe the pond snipe; and the pin-tail the rice field snipe.
At the census, 1891, 84,339 Yanadis were returned as Hindus, and 549 as
animists. Their places of worship are not temples, but houses, called
devara indlu (houses of the gods), set apart for every centre. They
worship a household god, a village goddess of local importance, and
a deity of wider repute and influence. Chenchu Devudu is invariably
the household god. Poleramma or Ankamma is in charge of a local area
for weal or woe. Subbarayudu, Venkateswaralu, Panchala, Narasimhulu,
and others, are the gods who control destinies over a wider area. The
Yanadis are their own priests. The objects of worship take various
forms: a wooden idol at Sriharikota; bricks; stones; pots of water
with margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves; images of gods drawn on
the walls of their houses; or mere handfuls of clay squeezed into
shape, and placed on a small platform erected under an aruka tree,
which, like other Hindus, they hold sacred. They use a red powder,
flowers, turmeric, etc., for worship; burn camphor and incense; and
distribute fruit, dhal (pulse of Cajanus indicus), and the like. In
worshipping ancestors, they resemble the Kurumbas. The house of
the gods is a sanctum, into which no polluting object is allowed to
enter. The most pious perform rites every Friday. At Sriharikota they
do so once a fortnight, or once a month. The ordinary Yanadi only
worships on occasion of a marriage, funeral, etc. A belief lingers
that the pious are en rapport with the deity, who converses with
them and even inspires them. The goddess receives animal sacrifices,
but Chenchu Devudu is a strict vegetarian, whose votaries are bound,
at times of worship, to subsist on a single daily meal of roots and
fruits. The Yanadis, like Hindus, wear sect marks, and are even divided
into Vaishnavites and Saivites. They are supposed, during worship,
to endow inanimate objects, and the spirits of geographical features,
with life and mind, and supernatural powers. Some Yanadis are converts
to Christianity.
The Yanadis live in low conical huts, rudely built of bamboo and
palmyra leaves, grass, or millet stalks, with a small entrance, through
which grown-up people have to creep. The hut affords protection from
the sun and rain, but the Yanadis generally cook, eat, and sleep
outside. The staple food of the Yanadis, apart from bazar purchases,
consists of the following:--
Animals:--Sambar deer, wild goat, bear, porcupine, boar, land tortoise,
hare, bandicoot and jerboa rat, Varanus (lizard), mungoose, and fish.
Vegetables and fruit:--Dioscorea (yams); pith and fruit of Phoenix
sylvestris (date palm); fruit kernel of Cycas circinalis, eaten after
thorough soaking in water; and fruits of Eugenia alternifolia and
Jambolana (black plum), Carissa Carandas and spinarum, Buchanania
acuminata, and Mimusops hexandra.
They are, like the Irulas of Chingleput, very partial to sour
and fermented rice-water, which is kept by the higher classes for
cattle. This they receive in exchange for headloads of fuel. For some
time past they have been stopped by the Forest officers from drinking
this pulusunillu, as it makes them lazy, and unfit for work.
The marriage ceremony is no indispensable necessity. The Adavi
Yanadis, as a rule, avoid it; the Reddi Yanadis always observe it. The
parents rarely arrange alliances, the parties concerned managing
for themselves. Maturity generally precedes marriage. Seduction
and elopement are common occurrences, and divorce is easily
obtained. Adultery is no serious offence; widows may live in
concubinage; and pregnancy before marriage is no crime. By nature,
however, the Yanadis are jealous of conjugal rights, and attached to
their wives. Widowhood involves no personal disfigurement, or denial
of all the emblems of married life.
A widow has been known to take, one after another, as many as seven
husbands. The greater the number of her husbands, the more exalted
is the status of a widow in society, and the stronger her title to
settle disputes on questions of adultery, and the like. Polygamy is
common, and a Yanadi is known to have had as many as seven wives, whom
he housed separately, and with whom he lived by turns. The marriage
ceremony is undergoing change, and the simple routine developing into
a costly ceremonial, the details of which (e.g., the "screen scene")
are copied from the marriage rites of higher castes in the Telugu
country. Until quite recently, the flower of the tangedu (Cassia
auriculata) did duty for the tali, which is now a turmeric-dyed cotton
thread with a gold bottu suspended from it. The auspicious hour is
determined by a very simple process. The hour is noon, which arrives
when a pole, two feet high, stuck vertically on the marriage platform,
ceases to throw a shadow. The pole has superseded the arrow used of
old, and sometimes a purohit is consulted, and gives the hour from
his calendar.
As a punishment for adultery, the unfaithful woman is, at Sriharikota,
made to stand, with her legs tied, for a whole day in the sun, with
a basket full of sand on her head.
The maternal uncle receives a measure of rice, a new cloth, and eight
annas, at the head-shaving ceremony of his nephew. At this ceremony,
which is a borrowed custom, the uncle plucks a lock of hair from the
head of the lad, and ties it to a bough of the aruka tree. The head
is shaved, and the lad worships the village goddess, to whom a fowl
is offered. The guests are feasted, and the evening is spent in a
wild torch-light dance.
At the first menstrual period, a Yanadi girl occupies a hut erected
for the purpose, which must have within it at least one stick of
Strychnos Nux-vomica, to drive away devils. On the ninth day the
hut is burnt down, and the girl cleanses herself from pollution by
bathing. A woman, after confinement, feeds for three days on the
tender leaves, or cabbage of the date palm (Phoenix sylvestris), and
then on rice. Margosa leaves, and sometimes the leaves of other trees,
and the knife with which the umbilical cord was cut, are placed under
the infant's head for six days. A net is hung in front of the door,
to keep out devils. The baby is given a name by the soothsayer, who
pretends to be in communication on the subject with the god or goddess.
The Yanadis pose as prophets of human destinies, and, like the Nilgiri
Kurumbas, pretend to hold intercourse with gods and goddesses,
and to intercede between god and man. Every village or circle has
one or more soothsayers, who learn their art from experts under
a rigid routine. The period of pupilage is a fortnight spent on a
dietary of milk and fruits with no cooked meat, in a cloister in
meditation. The god or goddess Ankamma, Poleramma, Venkateswaralu,
Subbaroyadu, or Malakondroyadu, appears like a shadow, and inspires
the pupil, who, directly the period of probation has ceased, burns
camphor and frankincense. He then sings in praise of the deity, takes
a sea bath with his master, gives a sumptuous feast, and becomes an
independent soothsayer. The ardent soothsayer of old wrought miracles,
so runs the story, by stirring boiling rice with his hand, which was
proof against scald or hurt. His modern brother invokes the gods with
burning charcoal in his folded hands, to the beat of a drum. People
flock in large numbers to know the truth. The word is rangampattedhi
in North Arcot and sodi in Nellore. The soothsayer arranges Chenchu
Devudu and the local gods in a separate devara illu or house of god,
which is always kept scrupulously clean, and where worship is regularly
carried on. The auspicious days for soothsaying are Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday. The chief soothsayer is a male. The applicant presents
him with betel nuts, fruit, flowers, and money. The soothsayer
bathes, and sits in front of his house smeared with black, white,
red, and other colours. His wife, or some other female, kindles a
fire, and throws frankincense into it. He beats his drum, and sings,
while a woman from within repeats the chant in a shrill voice. The
songs are in praise of the deity, at whose and the soothsayer's
feet the applicant prostrates himself and invokes their aid. The
soothsayer feels inspired, and addresses the supplicant thus: "You
have neglected me. You do not worship me. Propitiate me adequately, or
ruin is yours." The future is predicted in song. In these predictions
the rural folk place abundant faith.
The Yanadis bury their dead. The corpse is laid on leaves in front of
the hut, washed and clad. Pelalu (parched rice) is thrown over the
corpse by the son and all the agnates. It is eventually placed on a
bier, covered with a new cloth, and carried to the burial ground, by
the sons, or, in the absence thereof, the sapindas. At a fixed spot
near the grave, on which all corpses are placed, a cross is drawn on
the ground, the four lines of which represent the four cardinal points
of the compass. Close to the corpse are placed betel leaves and nuts,
and a copper coin. All present then proceed to the spot where the grave
is to be dug, while the corpse is left in charge of a Yanadi called
the Bathyasthadu, who, as a rule, belongs to a different sept from
that of the deceased. The corpse is laid on a cloth, face downwards,
in the grave. The eldest son, followed by the other relatives,
throws three handfuls of earth into the grave, which is then filled
in. On their return home, the mourners undergo purification by bathing
before entering their huts. In front of the dead man's hut, two broken
chatties (pots) are placed, whereof one contains ash-water, the other
turmeric-water. Into each chatty a leafy twig is thrown. Those who
have been present at the funeral stop at the chatties, and, with the
twig, sprinkle themselves first with the ash-water, and then with the
turmeric-water. Inside the hut a lighted lamp, fed with gingelly oil,
is set up, before which those who enter make obeisance before eating.
The chinnadinamu ceremony, whereof notice is given by the Bathyasthadu,
is usually held on the third day after death. Every group (gudem)
or village has its own Bathyasthadu, specially appointed, whose duty
it is to convey the news of death, and puberty of girls, to all the
relatives. Tupakis will never nominate a Tupaki as their Bathyastha,
but will select from a Mekala or any sept except their own.
On the morning of the chinnadinamu, the eldest son of the deceased
cooks rice in a new pot, and makes curries and cakes according to his
means. These are made up into six balls, which are placed in a new
basket, and taken to the burial-ground. On reaching the spot where the
cross-lines were drawn, a ball of rice is placed thereon, together with
betel leaves and nuts and a copper coin. The Bathyasthadu remains in
charge thereof, while those assembled proceed to the grave, whereon a
pot of water is poured, and a stone planted at the spot beneath which
the head lies. The stone is anointed with shikai (fruit of Acacia
Concinna) and red powder, and milk poured over it, first by the widow
or widower and then by the relations. This ceremony concluded, the son
places a ball of rice at each corner of the grave, together with betel
and money. Milk is poured over the remaining ball, which is wrapped
in a leaf, and buried over the spot where the abdomen of the deceased
is situated. Close to the grave, at the southern or head end, three
stones are set up in the form of a triangle, whereon a new pot full
of water is placed. A hole is made in the bottom of the pot, and the
water trickles out towards the head of the corpse. This concludes the
ceremony, and, as on the day of the funeral, purification by bathing,
ash-water and turmeric-water, is carried out.
The peddadinamu ceremony is performed on the sixteenth, or some
later day after death. As on the chinnadinamu, the son cooks rice
in a new pot. Opposite the entrance to the hut a handful of clay is
squeezed into a conical mass, representing the soul of the deceased,
and stuck up on a platform. The eldest son, taking a portion of
the cooked rice, spreads it on a leaf in front of the clay image,
before which incense is burnt, and a lamp placed. The image, and the
remainder of the food made up into four balls, are then carried by the
son to a tank (pond). As soon as the relatives have assembled there,
the recumbent effigy of a man is made, close to the edge of the tank,
with the feet towards the north. The conical image is set up close
to the head of the effigy, which is anointed by the relatives as at
the chinnadinamu, except that no milk is poured over it. The four
balls of rice are placed close to the hands and feet of the effigy,
together with betel and money, and the son salutes it. The agnates then
seat themselves in a row between the effigy and the water, with their
hands behind their backs, so as to reach the effigy, which is moved
slowly towards the water, into which it finally falls, and becomes
disintegrated. The proceedings conclude with distribution of cloths
and cheroots, and purification as before. The more prosperous Yanadis
now engage a Brahman to remove the pollution by sprinkling water over
them. During the peddadinamu incessant music and drum-beating has been
going on, and is continued till far into the night, and sometimes the
ceremonial is made to last over two days, in order that the Yanadis
may indulge in a bout of music and dancing.
The Yanadis are expert anglers, catching fish with a triangular net
or wicker basket. They also excel in diving for and catching hold
of fish concealed in crevices of rocks or buried in mud, and assist
European sportsmen by marking down florikin. Those who are unable
to count bring in a string with knots tied in it, to indicate the
number of birds marked. They catch bandicoot rats by a method known
as voodarapettuta. A pot is stuffed with grass, into which fire
is thrown. The mouth of the pot is placed against the hole made by
the bandicoot, and smoke blown into the hole through a small slit
in the pot. The animal becomes suffocated, and tries to escape
through the only aperture available, made for the occasion by the
Yanadi, and, as it emerges, is killed. They are fearless in catching
cobras, which they draw out of their holes without any fear of their
fangs. They pretend to be under the protection of a charm, while so
doing. A correspondent writes that a cobra was in his grounds, and
his servant got a Yanadi, who had charge of the adjoining garden,
to dislodge it. The man was anxious to catch it alive, and then,
before killing it, carefully removed the poison-sac with a knife,
and swallowed it as a protection against snake-bite.
The Yanadis are good shikaris (huntsmen), and devoid of fear in the
jungle. They hold licenses under the Arms Act, and being good shots,
are great at bagging tigers, leopards, porcupines, and other big and
small game. After an unsuccessful beat for spotted deer, a friend
informs me, the Yanadis engaged therein erected a cairn of twigs
and stones several feet high, round which they danced with gradually
quickening step, to the refrain in Telugu 'Nothing comes.' Then, to
the same tune, they danced round it in the opposite direction. The
incantation concluded, the beat was continued and a stag duly appeared
on the scene--and was missed!
They gather honey from bee-hives on hill tops and cliffs which are
precipitous and almost inaccessible, and perilous to reach. The man
climbs down with the help of a plaited rope of pliant bamboo, fastened
above to a peg driven firmly into a tree or other hard substance,
and takes with him a basket and stick. He drives away the bees at the
first swing by burning grass or brushwood beneath the hives. The next
swing takes him closer to the hive, which he pokes with the stick. He
receives the honey-comb in the basket, and the honey flows out of it
into a vessel adjusted to it. When the basket and vessel are full,
he shakes the rope, and is drawn up by the person in charge of it,
who is almost always his wife's brother, so that there may be no foul
play. He thus collects a considerable quantity of honey and wax,
for which he receives only a subsistence wage from the contractor,
who makes a big profit for himself.
The following list of minor forest products, chiefly collected by
Government Yanadis, is given in the Nellore District Gazette:--
Chay root (Oldenlandia umbellata), which, by a quaint misprint,
appears as cheroot.
Kanuga (Pongamia glabra).
Sarsaparilla (Hemidesmus indicus).
Nux vomica (Strychnos Nux-vomica).
Tangedu (Cassia auriculata).
Soap nut (Sapindus trifoliatus).
Achilla weed (lichens).
Ishwarac (Aristolochia indica).
Vishabuddi (Sida carpinifolia).
Kukkapala (Tylophora asthmatica).
Honey.
Rattan (Calamus Rotang).
Tamarind (Tamarindus indicus).
Neredu (Eugenia Jambolana).
Surati bark (Ventilago Madraspatana).
In the interests of the Yanadis it is laid down, in the Gazette, that
"the Yanadi villages must be encouraged, and the people paid at least
once a week for the produce they collect. This must be done by the
maistry (overseer) going up and down the main ride every day during
the collection season, checking the collections, and paying for them
on the spot. The Yanadis will, of course, camp out in the reserve
when collecting produce, and not return, as heretofore, every three
days to Sriharikota, thus wasting 45 per cent. of their time in the
mere coming and going, apart from the fact that, under the old system,
the produce from some parts of the reserves was never collected at all,
as no one visited them."
The Yanadis dance on festive occasions, at ceremonies, and occasionally
for begging, smearing the body with turmeric, wearing flowers,
singing meaningless songs, and drumming in rude fashion "dambukku,
dambukku." Their only wind instrument is the bag-pipe, but they play
on the snake charmer's reed as an accompaniment. Their dance is full
of indecent suggestion. They have of late trained themselves for the
stage, and there are several troupes of Bhagavathulu.
To the Rev. G. N. Thomssen, of the Telugu Mission, Bapatla, I am
indebted for the following account of a Yanadi dance. "Especially at
night, they love to gather in some part of the jungle where they have
their huts, and, having gathered a pile of palmyra leaves, burn them
one by one as torches, while a number of men and women begin to dance
their quaint, weird jungle dance, which is to represent the experiences
of the hunters in their wanderings. The chief actors, or dancers,
are dressed fantastically. They are almost nude, but dangling from
their loins are palmyra baskets, in which they gather edible bulbs
and roots, dead rats, snakes, etc., which are prized as something to
fill the stomach. Suddenly the actors fell on the ground. One of them
cries out 'thelu' (scorpion). Then the other asks where, and is shown
the place where the scorpion is supposed to have stung the sufferer,
while the choir sing:--
Alas! the scorpion stings.
O! O! the scorpion stings.
Which finger? Ah! the middle one.
As soon as I was stung,
The poison into my head ascends.
Ayo! Ayo! What shall I do?
Bring down the poison with yilledu.
This chant is kept up for a long time, when suddenly another of the
actors falls on the ground, and writhes like a snake. The Yanadis
are a very supple race, and, when dancing, especially when writhing
on the ground, one sees a display of muscular action that makes one
believe that the human body is capable of all the twists and turns of
a serpent. When the actor is representing the man bitten by a snake,
one hears quaint cries while the snake is sought in the hair, ears,
and nose, basket and loin-cloth. The choir now sings the following:--
Come down to catch the snake,
O! snake-charmer, behold the standing snake.
Be sure the pipe sounds well.
Come, come, with the big snakes in the basket,
And the little ones in the lock of your hair.
When I went down the bank of the Yerracheru,
And saw the harvest cut,
The cobra crawled beneath the harvester.
Ayo! Ayo! Ayo!
To see this action song, and to hear these strange people, is one
of the queerest experiences of native aboriginal life. The dancers,
and the spectators who form the choir, all become very excited, and
even the European, seeing the tamasha (spectacle), is infected with
the excitement. The actors are bathed in perspiration, but the dance
is kept up nevertheless, and only when their large stock of palmyra
leaf torches is exhausted will they stop and take their rest."
In their nomadic life the Yanadis have learnt by experience the
properties and uses of herbs and roots, with which they treat fever,
rheumatism, and other diseases. They have their own remedies for
cobra bite and scorpion sting. It is said that the Yanadis alone
are free from elephantiasis, which affects the remaining population
of Sriharikota.
It is noted by the Rev. G. N. Thomssen that "while it has been
impossible to gather these people into schools, because of their
shyness and jungle wildness, Christian missionaries, especially
the American Baptist missionaries, have succeeded in winning the
confidence of these degraded children of nature, and many of them
have joined the Christian Church. Some read and write well, and a few
have even learned English. We have a small, but growing settlement
of Christianised Yanadis at Bapatla."
To sum up the Yanadi. It is notorious that, in times of scarcity, he
avoids the famine relief works, for the simple reason that he does not
feel free on them. Nevertheless, a few are in the police service. Some
are kavalgars (watchmen), farm labourers, scavengers, stone-masons
or bricklayers, others are pounders of rice, or domestic servants,
and are as a rule faithful. They earn a livelihood also in various
subsidiary ways, by hunting, fishing, cobra-charming, collecting honey
or fuel, rearing and selling pigs, practicing medicine as quacks,
and by thieving. "An iron implement," Mr. F. S. Mullaly writes, [158]
called the sikkaloo kol, is kept by them ostensibly for the purpose of
digging roots, but it is really their jemmy, and used in the commission
of burglary. It is an ordinary iron tool, pointed at both ends, one
end being fitted in a wooden handle. With this they can dig through a
wall noiselessly and quickly, and many houses are thus broken into in
one night, until a good loot is obtained. House-breakings are usually
committed during the first quarter of the moon. Yanadis confess their
own crimes readily, but will never implicate accomplices.... Women
are useful in the disposal of stolen property. At dusk they go round
on their begging tours selling mats, which they make, and take the
opportunity of dropping a word to the women of cheap things for sale,
and the temptation is seldom resisted. Stolen property is also carried
in their marketing baskets to the village grocer, the Komati. Among
the wild (Adavi) Yanadis, women are told off to acquire information
while begging, but they chiefly rely on the liquor-shopkeepers for
news, which may be turned to useful account." [159]