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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(July, 1914
fighting, the Tóttiyans had other occupations $5 also. Almost all of them, men and women, were magicians. Indeed many of the Polygar memoirs assert that many chiefs owed their dignity and estate to their skill in magic. They were, in the popular opinion, experts in the cure of snake bites by magical incantations, and "the original inventor of this mode of treatment has been deified under the name of Pâmbâlamman." (Stuart).
It is impossible to go into all the divisions and subdivisions, endogamous and exogamous,80 into which the Tóttiyan caste became divided. In Madura they were in three divisions,-the Vékkili or Raja Kambalattår, the Thokala and Erakolla. In Tinnevelly they were in six divisions. Each of these divisions again was further subdivided into septs. The Erakollas of the Palayam of Nilakkottai, for instance, formed a group of seven septs. There were similar groups in the Trichinopoly district. On the whole, there seem to have been, according to one MS, nine sub-castes or important 'septs--or Kambalams as they were called-included in the comprehensive term Tóttiyan; and in the tribal council meetings, representatives of each of the nine Kambalams had to be present. Each of the Kambalams had a number of headmen. The Vekkilians, forming one of the Kambalams, had, for instance, three headmen called Mêttu Naiken, Kodia Naiken and Kambli Naiken. The first of these acted as priest on ceremonial occasions such as the attainment of puberty, the performance of marriage rites and the conduct of the tribal worship of Jakkamma and Bommakka. The Kambli Naiken attended to the ceremonial and other duties relating to the purification of erring members of the community. The Kambalam was so called, it is said, “because, at caste council meetings, a kambli (blanket) is spread, on which is placed a kalalam (brags vessel) filled with water, and containing margosa leaves, and decorated with flowers. Its mouth is closed by mango leaves and a cocoanut."
The Tóttiyans were, as a rule, very conservative and did not yield to Brahmanical influence with ease. In the system of marriage after puberty, in the curious system of family polyandry which existed among them, in their preference of the Kôdangi Naiken to a Brahman for their Guru, in the custom of allowing the tali to be tied on a bride's neck by any male member of the family into which she is married, in the eating of flesh, etc., we see the signs of primitive forms of social organisation still offering resistance to the assaults of Brahmanism and its patriarchal influence and monandrous marriage-bond. In their marriage customs they resembled the other Dravidian classes. They had the custom of marrying their boys to the daughter of their paternal aunt or maternal uncle.
85 A few, like the Kattu Tóttiyans of the present day, were perhaps even then the dregs of Tóttiyan society, and led the indolent and easy-going lives of vagrante, beggars, and snake-charmers. Some were pigbreeders, and the lowest class were Ormikarans or drummers, some peons and retainers, etc. They of course were held in contempt by the higher classes, and there was no interdining or intermarriage between them. As & whole, the Tóttiyans south of the Kaveri believe themselves to be socially superior to those north of it. This is explained on the ground that the latter gave a girl to a Muhammadan in marriage. That is why they are said to address the Muhammadans with unusual intimacy. The legend shows that the southern Tottiyans were proud seceders from their northern brothers in protest of their intermarriage with a Muhammadan. See Trichi Gaz.; Castes and Tribes p. 187; Jadr. Gaz.
86 It is curious that the Tottiyans did not celebrate marriages in their own homes, but in pandals of green pongu leaves erected for the purpose on the village common. It is equally curious that on such occasions even the wealthiest ate only cambu and horse-gram. The sacredness of the pongu is due to the fact that it was by means of the pon ru tree that they were able to cross the floods of a river during their retreat from the pursuit of Muhammadans.
