Edgar Thurston

“ A Nāyar should not come nearer than six paces to a Nambūtiri, a man of the barber caste nearer than twelve paces, a Tiyan than thirty-six, a Malayan than sixty-four, and a Pulaiyan than ninety-six. Malabar is, indeed, the most conservative part of Southern India. The man of high caste shouts occasionally as he goes along, so that the low caste man may go off the road, and allow him to pass unpolluted. And those of the lowest castes shout as they go, to give notice of their pollution-bearing presence, and, learning the command of the man of high caste, move away from the road. ”

“ Fire is made in a hole in front of the sacred stone, a fine cock brought in, decapitated amidst the music of horn and drum and the blood made to drip on the fire. The head of the fowl ought to be severed at one blow, as this is a sign of the satisfaction of the god for the past, and of further protection for the future. ”

“ As soon as he has picked up business ways sufficiently, he begins life as the agent of some other members of the caste, being perhaps entrusted with a lakh of rupees, often on no better security than an unstamped acknowledgment scratched on a palmyra leaf, and sent off to Burma or Singapore to trade with it, and invest it. A percentage on the profits of this undertaking, and savings from his own salary, form a nucleus which he in turn invests on his own account. His wife will often help pay the house-keeping bills by making baskets and spinning thread, for the women are as thrifty as the men. ”

“ Their victim suffers from unbearable agony. His clothes take fire, his food turns into ordure, his beverages become urine, stones fall in showers on all sides of him, but curiously not on him, and his bed becomes a literal bed of thorns. He feels like a lost man. In this way, with grim delight, the spirit continues to torment his victim by day as well as by night. But, with all this annoying mischief, Kuttichchāttan, or Boy Satan, does no serious harm. He oppresses and harasses, but never injures. ”

“ In theory, a man may divorce his wife at will, but it is scarcely etiquette to do so, except for infidelity, or in the case of incompatibility of temper. If he wants to get rid of her for less horrible crimes, he can palm her off on a friend. A woman cannot divorce her husband at all in theory, but she can make his life so unbearable that he gladly allows her to palm herself off on somebody else. ”

“ Tom-toming and other music are of course incessant accompaniments throughout as on other festal occasions, and the women in attendance keep up a curious kind of whistling, called kurava, beating their lips with their fingers. On the fourth day, girl and Manavālan go in procession to the temple richly dressed. The boy, carrying some sort of sword and shield, heads the party. If the family be one of position, he and the girl must be mounted on an elephant. Offerings are made, to the deity, and presents to the Brāhmans. ”

“ Despite the rigour of the bleak December season during which the festival commonly falls, heightened inevitably by the constant blowing of the cold east wind upon their moistened frames, these lusty maidens derive considerable pleasure from their early baths, and their frolics in the water. The biting cold of the season, which makes their persons shiver and quiver, becomes to them in the midst of all their ecstatic frolics an additional source of pleasure. ”

“ The procession in the evening is a great affair. Eight elephants, which kept line beautifully, took part in it when I witnessed it. One of them, very handsomely caparisoned, had on its back a priest (Mūssad) carrying a sword smothered in garlands of red flowers representing the goddess. The elephant bearing the priest is bedizened on the forehead with two golden discs, one on each side of the forehead, and over the centre of the forehead hangs a long golden ornament. These discs on the elephant’s forehead are common in Malabar in affairs of ceremony. ”

“ At a marriage, the father, taking the hand of the bride, and putting it into that of the bridegroom, says “I give this girl to you. Give her roots and leaves, and protect her.” The value of a bride or bridegroom depends very much on the quantity of roots, etc., which he or she can collect. When a widow does not remarry, the males of the community supply her with roots and other products of the jungle. Marriages are, as a rule, contracted within the settlement, and complications occasionally occur owing to the absence of a girl of suitable age for a young man. ”

“ If a young woman is suffering from hysteria, and is supposed to be possessed by an evil spirit, or by the discontented spirit of some deceased ancestor, nervousness is excited by beating drums, blowing conch-shells, and otherwise making a horrible noise close to her. When the supreme moment is believed to have arrived, water is sprinkled over the wretched woman, who is required to throw rice repeatedly on certain diagrams on the ground, woven into which is a representation of the goddess Durga, the ruler of evil spirits. An effigy of the evil spirit is then buried in a copper vessel. ”

“ A dead person, I was informed at Coimbatore, is buried in a sitting posture, or, if young and unmarried, in a recumbent position. As the funeral procession proceeds on its way to the burial-ground, the relations and friends throw coins, fruits, cakes, cooked rice, etc., on the road, to be picked up by poor people. If the funeral is in high life, they may even throw flowers made of gold or silver, but not images, as some of the higher classes do. At the south end of the grave, a hollow is scooped out for the head and back to rest in. ”

“ I have never heard any proverb, song, or folk-tale of the Muduvars, and believe the story of their arrival on the hills to be their stock tale. They have a story, which is more a statement of belief than anything else, that, when a certain bamboo below Pallivasal flowers, a son of the Mahārāja of Travancore turns into a tiger or puli-manisan, and devours people. Men often turn into puli-manisan owing chiefly to witchcraft on the part of others, and stories of such happenings are often told. ”

“ Impartibility is the fundamental principle. It is seldom that a Nambūtiri family comes to an end; and such a thing as a Nambūtiri’s estate escheating to Government has been said on eminent authority never to have been known. It happens sometimes that there is no male member to produce progeny, and in such a case the sarvasvadānam marriage is performed, by which a man of another family is brought into the family and married to a daughter of it, who, after the manner of the “appointed daughter” of old Hindu law, hands on the property through her children. ”

“ The desire of the Hindu for male rather than female children need not be dilated on. Putra (a son) is the one who saves from hell (put) . It is by every religious text made clear that it is the duty of every man to produce a son. The Nambūtiri may have practically any number of wives in succession, until he begets a son by one of them, and he may adopt a son through the sarvasvadānam form of marriage. On the day devoted to the pumsavana ceremony, the wife fasts until she is fed by her husband with one grain of corn, symbolising the generative organs of the male. ”

“ Hamilton wrote: “The husbands,” of whom, he said, there might be twelve, but no more at one time, “agree very well, for they cohabit with her in their turns, according to their priority of marriage, ten days more or less according as they can fix a term among themselves, and he that cohabits with her maintains her in all things necessary for his time, so that she is plentifully provided for by a constant circulation. When the man that cohabits with her goes into her house he leaves his arms at the door, and none dare remove them or enter the house on pain of death. ”

“ After pacing up and down slowly for some time, he gradually works himself up to a pitch of hysterical frenzy, while the tom-toms are beaten furiously, and the spectators join in raising a long, monotonous howling cry, with a peculiar vibration. At length he stops, and every one is addressed according to his rank; if the Pombada offends a rich Bānt by omitting any of his numerous titles, he is made to suffer for it. ”

“ It is a matter of greatest [352] importance that the whole pyre burns at once. The greatest care is taken that it burns as a whole, consuming every part of the corpse. While the corpse is being consumed, all the members of the deceased’s taravād who carried it to the pyre go and bathe in a tank (there is always one in the compound or grounds round every Nāyar’s house) . The eldest, he who bears the piece of torn cloth and iron (the key) , carries an earthen pot of water, and all return together to the place of cremation. ”

“ A further account of the death ceremonies is given in the Gazetteer of Malabar. “When death is believed to be near, the dying man is taken to the west of the hearth of the sacred fire (aupāsana agni) , and laid with his head to the south on a bed of sand and darbha grass, while the ōttu mantram is whispered in his ear. When life is extinct, the body is washed and covered with a plantain leaf. The mourners dress themselves in tāttu fashion, and tear up a new cloth breadthwise into pieces called sesham, which they each wear round their waist. ”

“ People living in country places, remote from towns, are entirely at the mercy of the Maravars, and every householder or occupier of a mud hut, which is dignified by being called a house, must pay the Maravars half a fanam, which is equal to one anna eight pies, yearly. Those who own cattle, and there are few who do not, must pay one fanam a year. At the time of the harvest, it is the custom in Southern India for an enemy to go and reap his antagonist’s crops as they are growing in the fields. ”

“ So fond are the Malayālis of the sequin that to this day there is quite a large trade in imitations of the coin for purposes of ornament. Such is the persistence of its use that the trade extends to brass and even copper imitation of the sequins. The former are often seen to bear the legend ‘Made in Austria.’ The Nāyars wear none but the gold sequins. The brass imitations are worn by the women of the inferior races. If one asks the ordinary Malayāli, say a Nāyar, what persons are represented on the sequin, one gets for answer that they are Rāma and Sīta; between them a cocoanut tree. ”

“ A man or woman must marry with one of a khilai belonging to another tree than his own, his or her own being that of his or her mother, and not of the father. But marriage is not permissible between those of any two trees or kothus: there are some restrictions. For instance, a branch of betel vine or leaves may marry with a branch of cocoanut, but not with areca nuts or dates. I am not positive what all the restrictions are, but restrictions of some kind, by which marriage between persons of all trees may not be made indiscriminately, certainly exist. ”

“ When a girl is ten years old, or a little more, her father thinks of finding a husband for her. Property alone is the real thing to be considered. Every detail bearing on advantage to the family through the alliance is carefully thought out. Among the Malayālis generally, the young man with University degrees has command of the marriage market, but to the Nambūtiri these are of no account. When the girl’s father has fixed on a likely young man, he gets his horoscope, and confers with a Vādhyar concerning the suitability or agreement of the young man’s horoscope with that of his daughter. ”

“ An annual festival known as Bharani, connected with this goddess, plays a most important part in the religious history of Malabar. It comes off in the Malayalam month of Meenam (about March or April) . Pilgrimages undertaken to the temple on this occasion are potent enough to safeguard the pilgrims, and their friends and relations, from the perilous attacks of cholera and small-pox. Hence people resort thither annually by thousands from almost all parts of Malabar; and, the more north you go, the stronger will you find the hold which the goddess has upon the popular imagination. ”

“ If the woman is declared innocent, she is re-accepted amidst universal rejoicings, and the head of the family feels amply repaid for the expenditure he has incurred in the reputation for chastity secured for a member of his family under such a severe ordeal. If things do not end so well, all the Brāhmans come out of the temple and re-assemble, when a Brāhman, who is usually not a Nambūtiri, as the Nambūtiris do not desire to condemn one of their own caste, stands up, and in a stentorian voice repeats the substance of the charge, and the judgment as given by the Smārta. ”

“ Even an ordinary shed set up in front of a house is not called a pandal, as the name is associated with funerals. On the day following the funeral, the bigger fragments of bones are collected by a barber, and given to the son, who places them in an earthen pot. A Pandāram offers fruit, food, etc., to the deceased. Eight days afterwards, a feast, at which meat is partaken of for the first time since the death, is given to the relations of the dead person, and their pollution is at an end. They may not, however, enter a temple for thirty days. ”

“ The performance (of devil dances) always takes place at night, commencing about nine o’clock. At first the pūjāri, with the Bhūta sword and bell in his hands, whirls round and round, imitating the supposed mien and gestures of the demon. But he does not aspire to full possession; that is reserved for a Pombada or a Nalke, a man of the lowest class, who comes forward when the Billava pūjāri has exhibited himself for about [145] half an hour. He is naked save for a waist-band, his face is painted with ochre, and he wears a sort of arch made of cocoanut leaves, and a metal mask. ”

“ A Brāhman woman ties a thread round the girl’s left wrist, and sings a song called Subhadraveli, which deals with the marriage by capture of Subhadra by Arjuna. Then, on the invitation of the girl’s mother, who throws a garland round his neck, the bridegroom goes in procession, riding on an elephant, or on foot. The girl’s brother is waiting to receive him at the pandal. A leading villager is presented with some money, as if to recompense him for the permission granted by him to commence the ceremony. The girl sits within the mandapa, facing the east, with her eyes closed. ”