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OCTOBER, 1874.)
NOTES ON CASTES IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
289
and is now isolated by the most rigid social of the soil. It is also a tradition with them restrictions from their old caste-brethren and never to eat the salt of the Sirkår, nor to take any from the whole outer world.
service under Government, whether as soldier or Another such caste or tribal group of Vellalar writer or policeman. The head of each village I met with in Râmnad. They are known as is of course a recognized official; but this duty the “ Aram-pu-kutti Vellalar," i e. the Vellalar he fulfils rather to the village as patriarch than with wreaths of the áram flower. This flower to the Government as magistrate. is one of the decorations of Siva; but I have The cause of their original migration is heard no explanation of the name. This forgotten, if it was ever recorded; but it is monfamily group has established itself in twelve tioned as one of the results of their coming to the villages on the north-east frontier of the
southward that they first established the wore Râmna d territory, a tract bounded by the two
ship of Siva in the district in which they settled. rivers, the Uppår on the north, and the !
The name of Siva's flower, the Arampa or Veiga y on the south.
Attipů, may have some bearing on this conThere are said to be seventy families of them, nection of the tribe with the Siva-creed. who occupy a tract of about twenty-tive square
It would be rash to generalizo from two such miles; but this nameration of the group repre
instances as to any principles of caste-formasents rather a traditional than the actual num
tion. But one thing inay be noted, and that ber, which must be far larger.
is that the vulgar explanations of caste derarThe family traditions record that they emi- cations as arising from differences of religion on grated five centuries ago, in the time of Vara- the one hand, and from diversities of trade or guna Pandya from the Tonda-man- occupation on the other, are wholly inadequato dalam, of which Kanchipuram was the
to explain such caste-units as I have described. capital. The migration was made--so runs the Socially these Kottei-Vellalar and tale-in devendra vimânam' or covered cars; Arampu-kutti-Vellalar are perfectly and still this form of vehicle is invariably used distinct from each other, and from the main body in marriage ceremonies as the peculiar vehicle for of the Vellalar tribe. They certainly will the conveyance of the bride and bridegroom not intermarry : I doubt whether they would eat around the village. Physically the members of together; but their occupations and creeds are this tribe of Vellalar differ in no way from identical. What then made them separate into other sub-divisions of the tribe. But their social distinct castes, and cutthemselves off from all the customs are in many particulars remarkable world ? Mainly, if not wholly, this arose from and distinctive. The women never wear a purely physical causes: from their originally cloth above the waist, but go absolutely bare on settling as a family in a strange country, where breast and shoulders. The two rivers which they recognized no kin, and proudly avoided all bound their district on north and south are connexion with the former settlers. Partly, too, rigid limits to the travels of the women, who because the ground was unbroken and the are on no pretext allowed to cross them; and it country unpeopled, so that the new settlers is said that when women, as they sometimes will, lived alone, and while they forgot the ties that make vows to the deity of a celebrated temple, bound them to the home they had left, they grew Avudiar-kovil, in Tânjor, which lies to up" between the rivers" as it were, and knew the north of the Uppar, they have to perform nothing of their new neighbours, who were their pilgrimage to the temple in the most per- often distant and always hostile. Thus, in the fect secrecy, and that if detected they are fined. two cases I have quoted, the one family shut Intermarriage is also prohibited with "those themselves up within narrow walls, and the beyond the rivers," as all of the outer world is other between two rivers, but the result of incalled. The men, too, have some peculiarities, sulation was the same, and the method similar, of which one is invincible aversion to emi- and they now have succeeded in developing grate to Ceylon, as half the population of Râm- themselves from small families into small but nad do from time to time. They never leave the perfectly distinct castes. mainland, and adhere solely to the cultivation Tinneveli, 9th July 1874.
