Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 2 of 7

by Edgar Thurston

The Chakkiliyan men in Madras are tattooed not only on the forehead, but also with their name, conventional devices, dancing-girls, etc., on the chest and upper extremities.

It has been noticed as a curious fact that, in the Madura district, “while the men belong to the right-hand faction, the women belong to and are most energetic supporters of the left. It is even said that, during the entire period of a faction riot, the Chakkili women keep aloof from their husbands and deny them their marital rights.”[7]

In a very interesting note on the leather industry of the Madras Presidency, Mr. A. Chatterton writes as follows.[8] “The position of the Chakkiliyan in the south differs greatly from that of the Mādiga of the north, and many of his privileges are enjoyed by a ‘sub-sect’ of the Pariahs called Vettiyans. These people possess the right of removing dead cattle from villages, and in return have to supply leather for agricultural purposes. The majority of Chakkiliyans are not tanners, but leather-workers, and, instead of getting the hides or skins direct from the Vettiyan, they prefer to purchase them ready-tanned from traders, who bring them from the large tanning centres. When the Chuckler starts making shoes or sandals, he purchases the leather and skin which he requires in the bazar, and, taking it home, first proceeds with a preliminary currying operation. The leather is damped and well stretched, and dyed with aniline, the usual colour being scarlet R.R. of the Badische Anilin Soda Fabrik. This is purchased in the bazar in packets, and is dissolved in water, to which a little oxalic acid has been added. The dye is applied with a piece of rag on the grain side, and allowed to dry. After drying, tamarind paste is applied to the flesh side of the skin, and the latter is then rolled between the hands, so as to produce a coarse graining on the outer side. In making the shoes, the leather is usually wetted, and moulded into shape on wooden moulds or lasts. As a rule, nothing but cotton is used for sewing, and the waxed ends of the English cobbler are entirely unknown. The largest consumption of leather in this Presidency is for water-bags or kavalais, which are used for raising water from wells, and for oil and ghee (clarified butter) pots, in which the liquids are transported from one place to another. Of irrigation wells there are in the Presidency more than 600,000, and, though some of them are fitted with iron buckets, nearly all of them have leather bags with leather discharging trunks. The buckets hold from ten to fifty gallons of water, and are generally made from fairly well tanned cow hides, though for very large buckets buffalo hides are sometimes used. The number of oil and ghee pots in use in the country is very large. The use of leather vessels for this purpose is on the decline, as it is found much cheaper and more convenient to store oil in the ubiquitous kerosine-oil tin, and it is not improbable that eventually the industry will die out, as it has done in other countries. The range of work of the country Chuckler is not very extensive. Besides leather straps for wooden sandals, he makes crude harness for the ryot’s cattle, including leather collars from which numerous bells are frequently suspended, leather whips for the cattle drivers, ornamental fringes for the bull’s forehead, bellows for the smith, and small boxes for the barber, in which to carry his razors. In some places, leather ropes are used for various purposes, and it is customary to attach big coir (cocoanut fibre) ropes to the bodies of the larger temple cars by leather harness, when they are drawn in procession through the streets. Drum-heads and tom-toms are made from raw hides by Vettiyans and Chucklers. The drums are often very large, and are transported upon the back of elephants, horses, bulls and camels. For them raw hides are required, but for the smaller instruments sheep-skins are sufficient. The raw hides are shaved on the flesh side, and are then dried. The hair is removed by rubbing with wood-ashes. The use of lime in unhairing is not permissible, as it materially decreases the elasticity of the parchment.” The Chakkiliyans beat the tom-tom for Kammālans, Pallis and Kaikōlans, and for other castes if desired to do so.

The Chakkiliyans do not worship Mātangi, who is the special deity of the Mādigas. Their gods include Madurai Vīran, Māriamma, Mūneswara, Draupadi and Gangamma. Of these, the last is the most important, and her festival is celebrated annually, if possible. To cover the expenses thereof, a few Chakkiliyans dress up so as to represent men and women of the Marāthi bird-catching caste, and go about begging in the streets for nine days. On the tenth day the festival terminates. Throughout it, Gangamma, represented by three decorated pots under a small pandal (booth) set up on the bank of a river or tank beneath a margosa (Melia azadirachta), or pīpal (Ficus religiosa) tree, is worshipped. On the last day, goats and fowls are sacrificed, and limes cut.

During the first menstrual period, the Chakkiliyan girl is kept under pollution in a hut made of fresh green boughs, which is erected by her husband or maternal uncle. Meat, curds, and milk are forbidden. On the last day, the hut is burnt down. At marriages a Chakkiliyan usually officiates as priest, or the services of a Valluvan priest may be enlisted. The consent of the girl’s maternal uncle to the marriage is essential. The marriage ceremony closely resembles that of the Paraiyans. And, at the final death ceremonies of a Chakkiliyan, as of a Paraiyan, two bricks are worshipped, and thrown into a tank or stream.

Lean children, especially of the Māla, Mādiga, and Chakkiliyan classes, are made to wear a leather strap, specially made for them by a Chakkiliyan, which is believed to help their growth.

At times of census, some Chakkiliyans have returned themselves as Pagadaiyar, Madāri (conceit or arrogance), and Ranavīran (brave warrior).

Chākkiyar.—The Chākkiyars are a class of Ambalavāsis, of whom the following account is given in the Travancore Census Report, 1901. The name is generally derived from Slaghyavākkukār (those with eloquent words), and refers to the traditional function of the caste in Malabar society. According to the Jātinirnaya, the Chākkiyars represent a caste growth of the Kaliyuga. The offence to which the first Chākkiyar owes his position in society was, it would appear, brought to light after the due performance of the upanayanasamskāra. Persons, in respect of whom the lapse was detected before that spiritualizing ceremony took place, became Nambiyars. Manu derives Sūta, whose functions are identical with the Malabar Chākkiyar, from a pratilōma union, i.e., of a Brāhman wife with a Kshatriya husband.[9] The girls either marry into their own caste, or enter into the sambandham form of alliance with Nambūtiris. They are called Illōttammamar. Their jewelry resembles that of the Nambūtiris. The Chākkiyar may choose a wife for sambandham from among the Nambiyars. They are their own priests, but the Brāhmans do the purification (punyāham) of house and person after birth or death pollution. The pollution itself lasts for eleven days. The number of times the Gāyatri (hymn) may be repeated is ten.

The traditional occupation of the Chākkiyans is the recitation of Purānic stories. The accounts of the Avatāras have been considered the highest form of scripture of the non-Brāhmanical classes, and the early Brāhmans utilised the intervals of their Vēdic rites, i.e., the afternoons, for listening to their recitation by castes who could afford the leisure to study and narrate them. Special adaptations for this purpose have been composed by writers like Narayana Bhattapāda, generally known as the Bhattatirippāt, among whose works Dūtavākya, Pānchālisvayamvara, Subhadrāhana and Kauntēyāshtaka are the most popular. In addition to these, standard works like Bhōgachampu and Māhanātaka are often pressed into the Chākkiyar’s service. Numerous upakathās or episodes are brought in by way of illustration, and the marvellous flow of words, and the telling humour of the utterances, keep the audience spell-bound. On the utsavam programme of every important temple, especially in North Travancore, the Chākkiyarkūttu (Chākkiyar’s performance) is an essential item. A special building, known as kūttampalam, is intended for this purpose. Here the Chākkiyar instructs and regales his hearers, antiquely dressed, and seated on a three-legged stool. He wears a peculiar turban with golden rim and silk embossments. A long piece of cloth with coloured edges, wrapped round the loins in innumerable vertical folds with an elaborateness of detail difficult to describe, is the Chākkiyar’s distinctive apparel. Behind him stands the Nambiyar, whose traditional kinship with the Chākkiyar has been referred to, with a big jar-shaped metal drum in front of him called milāvu, whose bass sound resembles the echo of distant thunder. The Nambiyar is indispensable for the Chākkiyarkūttu, and sounds his mighty instrument at the beginning, at the end, and also during the course of his recitation, when the Chākkiyar arrives at the middle and end of a Sanskrit verse. The Nangayar, a female of the Nambiyar caste, is another indispensable element, and sits in front of the Chākkiyar with a cymbal in hand, which she sounds occasionally. It is interesting to note that, amidst all the boisterous merriment into which the audience may be thrown, there is one person who has to sit motionless like a statue. If the Nangayar is moved to a smile, the kūttu must stop, and there are cases where, in certain temples, the kūttu has thus become a thing of the past. The Chākkiyar often makes a feint of representing some of his audience as his characters for the scene under depictment. But he does it in such a genteel way that rarely is offence taken. It is an unwritten canon of Chākkiyarkūttu that the performance should stop at once if any of the audience so treated should speak out in answer to the Chākkiyar, who, it may be added, would stare at an admiring listener, and thrust questions on him with such directness and force as to need an extraordinary effort to resist a reply. And so realistic is his performance that a tragic instance is said to have occurred when, by a cruel irony of fate, his superb skill cost a Chākkiyar his life. While he was explaining a portion of the Mahābhārata with inimitable theatrical effect, a desperate friend of the Pāndavas rose from his seat in a fit of uncontrollable passion, and actually knocked the Chākkiyar dead when, in an attitude of unmistakable though assumed heartlessness, he, as personating Duryōdhana, inhumanely refused to allow even a pin-point of ground to his exiled cousins. This, it is believed, occurred in a private house, and thereafter kūttu was prohibited except at temples.

It is noted, in the Gazetteer of Malabar, that “Chākkiyars or Slāghyar-vakukar are a caste following makkattāyam (inheritance from father to son), and wear the pūnūl (thread). They are recruited from girls born to a Nambūdiri woman found guilty of adultery, after the date at which such adultery is found to have commenced, and boys of similar origin, who have been already invested with the sacred thread. Boys who have not been invested with the pūnūl when their mother is declared an adulteress, join the class known as Chākkiyar Nambiyars, who follow marumakkattāyam (inheritance in the female line), and do not wear the thread. The girls join either caste indifferently. Chākkiyars may marry Nangiyars, but Chākkiyar Nambiyars may not marry Illōtammamar.”