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6. Means of livelihood - As may be expected the principal article of food is the flesh of wild animals, ordinarily deer or wild goats which swarm the forests. The meat is dried in the sun or over the fire, and preserved on strings or stored in pots. It is interesting to note that they do not know the use of bows and arrows and do not own them. They mainly hunt with their wild dogs which they tame for the purpose. The dogs sent and track the game which when brought at bay is instantly maimed by blows on the limbs with stout sticks which they carry for the purpose, and are killed by the bill hook which is their only weapon. They are also keen in scenting kills of animals by the tiger or by wild dogs. A flight or eagles or kites circling high up in the air ordinarily denotes to the keen eye of the Kurumba dead game half eaten by the tiger or being consumed by the wild dogs. They also subsist on wild edible roots, which is a common article of food. As we were entering one of the principle Kurumba village, a group of women was seen wending their way to the forests for edible roots, carrying sharp pointed sticks called Kuzhikkol and the gulali, as the broad spade with a long handle is called. They also raise a small crop of ragi near their padi. A small plot of ground is turned over with the gudali, and seeds are sown about the beginning of rains. The forest department in the great need for securing laboures hold out inducements to get and retain them, chiefly by assigning plots of government land close to their hadi with advance of seeds to start them in cultivation, and rupees fifty in money, with which to buy cattle for the plough, the money being recoverable in small instalments spread over a year by short deductions from the daily wages. Where they are thus persuaded to cultivate, a small settlement of Paniyars with their ruder and more primitive and fragile huts may be seen, to attend to the agricultural labour involved. But the system is so difficult to work that the forest officers find it hard to recover the sum within the period, as in the event of any pressure, they run the risk of the men deserting them, as they often do for work in the coffee and tea plantations which also offer them good terms. Speaking of them in 1911, Gopalan Nair in his brief account of them in his Wynad(p. 112) writes, Jain Kurumbars are a ''primitive race without a history and they are happy in their mountain slopes with means of subsistence always available in the shape of edible rotos. Another decade, they will also be working or wages in the tea estate and earning their livelihood like their brother aboriginies of Wynad". The prophecy has been more than fulfilled. Both men and women are largely employed in
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