89. QUOTE: if the pot‐drum has been polluted by the touch of a menstruating female END OF QUOTE.

Menstruating females are seen as polluting agents. Why it is so is not known to me. However, their entry into temples during this period has been mentioned as forbidden.

In some households, menstruating females are not allowed to cook in the kitchen. Even though this seems quite outrageous, in effect, it is a nice time of relaxation for the female.

90. QUOTE: Hindus of all castes, high and low, make vows and offerings to the gods, with the object of securing their good‐will or appeasing their anger END OF QUOTE.

Thurston has noted that the lower castes make pious offering to minor stature deities in the form of fowls, sheep, goats or buffaloes. These minor deities allow animal sacrifice.

At the same time, the higher castes keep out of these things. They give their offering to higher stature deities as Venkateswara of Tirupati, Subramanya of Palni, Viraraghava of Tiruvallur and Tirunarayana of Melkote. I do not know if these deities are from the Brahmanical spiritual antiquity. What are offered in these places are various kinds of vows.

What might be interesting to seek out is possibility that what the lower castes were worshipping were some kind of Shamanistic deities which came along with them from elsewhere. However, when their social stature went down, these deities also were given a slight distance by the Hindu worshipers (i.e. Brahmins, and the other associated Aaryan castes).

Even though the lower castes naturally would have an infatuation with the higher caste deities, due to the issue of distance lending enchantment, it is noted by Thurston that when they have serious illnesses, the Hindus had no qualms in seeking the help of the Shamanistic deities.

91. QUOTE: Writing in 1872, Mr Breeks remarked that ''about Ootacamund, a few Todas have latterly begun to imitate the religious practices of their native neighbours END OF QUOTE.

It is an interesting observation. That, religious practises do spread by means of diffusion. Whenever the same kind of people comes into social leadership, they form the social system as per their language designs. Along with that spiritual believes also spread.

Wherever the English rule was in place, the social system slowly changed into an egalitarian one as per the designs of the English language.

92. QUOTE: He subsequently had many sons, one of whom he named Dasan, and placed entirely at the service of the god. Dasan forfeited all claim to his father's estate, and his descendants are therefore all beggars. END OF QUOTE.

There might be many examples of people making a pledge to their deity that not only themselves, but their descendents would also do it. I do have a gut feeling that this vow is connected to the hierarchal codes in the feudal languages. In these languages, children are the regimented subordinates of the elders. The elder can be either the fathers, or the mother, or even the maternal uncle. It depends on the family system of the person.

93. Some devotees pierce a skewer (silver pins) through the cheeks. I have seen such people in my childhood. Some poke a sphere into some body parts. All these are done as part of some penance or vow. It would be good to have a very realistic study of what induces them to do this, and what is the benefit they derive. Simply decrying all this as ‘superstitions’ will not give any information. The basic question would be as to how this kind of seemingly terrifying penances came into practise.

94. QUOTE: Curiously enough, the priest of this Paraiya shrine is himself a Brahman. END OF QUOTE.

In many ways, this points to the conceding of their own inferiority by the lower castes to the social superiors. Also might point to the ways, in which Brahmanical religion slowly diffused into the Shamanistic worship. It is also quite possible that the Brahmanical religion (Hinduism) maintained its purity at various locations.

It may be noted that the lower castes were not one group. They were mutually competing groups, to achieve a social stature above their nearest castes. In fact, Thurston himself has noted in his Castes and Tribes of Southern India, that the at-the-very-bottom castes would fight for supremacy among themselves. This was a location where the Brahmanical castes never interfered. In fact, their minor postures of mutual superiority might provide entertainment to the higher castes.

95. Odiyan: There is a very curious description of the Odiyan phenomenon in this book. I think it is part of the Malabar areas’ social terrors. I do not know if this phenomenon has been there in other places of the southern parts of the South Asian subcontinent. In fact, there is no mention of it in this book with regard to other locations in the Madras Presidency and also in Travancore kingdom areas.

In the Malabar areas, Odiyan phenomenon was a terror mentioned till around the 1960s. The belief was that the lower castes of Paniyas and Pulayas would use black magic powers to change their form into certain specific animals like cat, dog, bull &c. In that form, they would approach the household of the higher castes, which were actually beyond the bounds of the lower castes.

They would use these powers to have sexual relationship with higher caste women.

However, the most terrible part of this belief was about the way they would acquire the powers of black magic.

What was required was pillathylam (foetal essence). The Odiyan’s assistant would first prospect for a pregnant woman of about six or seven month’s foetal growth. They have to get her in their hands. The time of this is midnight hours. They would go through certain ritualistic fasting beforehand. A Yantram would be drawn on the ground and the auspicious versus inauspicious signs are noted. If everything is okay, they approach the woman’s house.

The black magician would hold in his hand a coconut containing a black magic potion called Gurusi, and go around the house in circumambulation. Various mantra lines would be chanted along with this.

QUOTE from the book: By the potency of his cult, the woman is made to come out. Even if the door of the room in which she might sleep be under lock and key, she would knock her head against it until she found her way out. END of QUOTE from the book.

The black magician would lead the woman to a secluded. He then tells her to lie down on the ground. Rest of the details of how the foetus is extracted and how it is used would make sordid detailing. The details can be found in OMENS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF SOUTHERN INDIA.

Picture from NATIVE LIFE in TRAVANCORE

Many people did believe in these cabalistic powers which the Paraya and Pulaya lower castes were reputed to have. There was real terror of this wizardry, that the higher castes would at times, if they suspected anyone of these lower castes of practising the same, attack their feeble hamlets. They would maim them or even burn down their huts.

That was only one side of the issue. The other side was actually that there was belief that these kinds of occult powers can be achieved by the practise of these hidden arts. There were cases of extracting the foetus etc. The English colonial administration had to deal with both sides of the issue. On one hand, the protection of the totally enfeebled lower caste settlements was one responsibility. The other suppressing those who were inclined to practise these terrible arts.

From a perfunctory perspective, one might say that the lower castes were suppressed. However, in their unsuppressed state, they were quite capable of all human deeds, good and bad.

There is this quite interesting mention about the Parayas in the Travancore kingdom, made by REV. Mateer in his NATIVE LIFE IN TRAVANCORE.

QUOTE from NATIVE LIFE IN TRAVANCORE:

A curious custom also existed, which is said to have added to the number of the enslaved. The various castes met at fighting grounds at Pallam, Ochira, &c.; and at this season it was supposed that low-caste men were at liberty to seize high-caste women if they could manage it, and to retain them. Perhaps this practice took its origin in some kind of faction fights.

A certain woman at Mundakayam, with fair Syrian features, is said to have been carried off thus. Hence arose a popular error that during the months of Kumbha and Meena (February and March), if a Pulayan meets a Sudra woman alone he may seize her, unless she is accompanied by a Shanar boy.

This time of year was called Pula pidi kalam, Gundert says that this time of terror was in “the month Karkadam (15th July to 15th August), during which high caste women may lose caste if a slave happen to throw a stone at them after sunset.”

The Pariahs in North Travancore formerly kidnapped females of high caste, whom they were said to treat afterwards in a brutal manner. Their custom was to turn robbers in the month of February, just after the ingathering of the harvest, when they were free from field work, and at the same time excited by demon worship, dancing, and drink.

They broke into the houses of Brahmans and Nayars, carrying away their children and property, in excuse for which they pretended motives of revenge rather than interest, urging a tradition that they were once a division of the Brahmans, but entrapped into a breach of caste rules by their enemies making them eat beef.

These crimes were once committed almost with impunity in some parts, but have now disappeared.

Barbosa, writing about A.D. 1516, refers to this strange custom as practised by the polcas (Pulayars). “These low people during certain months of the year try as hard as they can to touch some of the Nayr women, as best they may be able to manage it, and secretly by night, to do them harm.

END OF QUOTE from NATIVE LIFE IN TRAVANCORE