Children are supposed to be born without souls, and to be afterwards chosen as an abode by the soul of an ancestor. The coming of the ancestor is signalised by the child dropping a chicken bone which has been thrust into its hand, and much rejoicing follows among the assembled relations.[55]
Mr. Paddison tells me that some Dōmbs are reputed to be able to pour blazing oil over their bodies, without suffering any hurt; and one man is said to have had a miraculous power of hardening his skin, so that any one could have a free shot at him, without hurting him. He further narrates that, at Sujanakōta in the Vizagapatam district, the Dōmbs, notwithstanding frequent warnings, put devils into two successive schoolmasters.
Various tattoo devices, borne by the Dōmbs examined by Mr. Fawcett, are figured and described by him. “These patterns,” he writes, “were said to be, one and all, purely ornamental, and not in any way connected with totems, or tribal emblems.” Risley, however,[56] regards “four out of the twelve designs as pretty closely related to the religion and mythology of the tribe; two are totems and two have reference to the traditional avocations. Nos. 11 and 12 represent a classical scene in Dōm folk-lore, the story of King Haris-Chandra, who was so generous that he gave all he had to the poor and sold himself to a Dōm at Benares, who employed him to watch his cremation ground at night. While he was thus engaged, his wife, who had also been sold for charitable purposes, came to burn the body of her son. She had no money to pay her fees, and Haris-Chandra, not knowing her in the darkness, turned her away. Fortunately the sun rose; mutual recognition followed; the victims of promiscuous largesse were at once remarried, and Vishnu intervened to restore the son to life. Tatu No. 11 shows Haris-Chandra watching the burning-ground by moonlight; the wavy line is the Ganges; the dots are the trees on the other side; the strokes on either side of the king are the logs of wood, which he is guarding. In No. 12 we see the sun rising, its first ray marked with a sort of fork, and the meeting of the king and queen.”
It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. They had no opinion of the deterrent effects of mere imprisonment on the Dombus. ‘You fatten them, and send them back,’ they said, and suggested that a far better plan would be to cut off their right hands. [It is noted, in the Vizagapatam Manual, 1869, that in cases of murder, the Rājah of Jeypore generally had the man’s hands, nose, and ears cut off, but, after all that, he seldom escaped the deceased’s relatives.] They eventually proposed a plan of checking the cattle-thefts, which is now being followed in much of that country. The Bāranaiks, or heads of groups of villages, were each given brands with distinctive letters and numbers, and required to brand the skins of all animals which had died a natural death or been honestly killed; and the possession by Dombus, skin merchants, or others, of unbranded skins is now considered a suspicious circumstance, the burden of explaining which lies upon the possessor. Unless this, or some other way of checking the Dombus’ depredations proves successful, serious danger exists that the rest of the people will take the matter into their own hands and, as the Dombus in the Agency number over 50,000, this would mean real trouble.” It is further recorded[57] that the Paidis (Paidi Mālas), who often commit dacoities on the roads, “are connected with the Dombus of the Rāyagada and Gunupur tāluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of fifty or more, with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and sowcar,[58] usually the only man worth looting in an agency village, and a shark who gets little pity from his neighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women, and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the houseowner with boiling oil.”
Dommara.—The Dommaras are a tribe of tumblers, athletes, and mountebanks, some of whom wander about the country, while others have settled down as agricultural labourers, or make combs out of the wood of Elæodendron glaucum, Ixora parviflora, Pavetta indica, Ficus bengalensis, etc., which they sell to wholesale merchants. They are, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,[59] “a nomad class of acrobats, who, in many respects, recall the gipsies to mind, and raise the suggestion that their name may possibly be connected with the Dōms of Northern India. They speak Telugu, Marāthi, and Hindustani, but not generally Tamil. They are skilful jugglers, and both men and women are very clever tumblers and tight-rope dancers, exhibiting their feats as they travel about the country. Some of them sell date mats and baskets, some trade in pigs, while others, settled in villages, cultivate lands. In social position they rank just above the Pariahs and Mādigas. They profess to be Vaishnavites [and Saivites]. Infant marriage is not practiced. Widow remarriage is freely allowed, and polygamy is common. Their marriage tie is very loose, and their women often practice prostitution. They are a predatory class, great drunkards, and of most dissolute habits. The dead are generally buried, and [on the day of the final death ceremonies] cooked rice is thrown out to be eaten by crows. In the matter of food, they eat all sorts of animals, including pigs, cats, and crows.” When a friend was engaged in making experiments in connection with snake venom, some Dommaras asked for permission to unbury the corpses of snakes and mungooses for the purpose of food.
Ārē Dommara acrobat.
The Dommaras are, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, summed up as being buffoons, tumblers, acrobats, and snakecharmers, who travel from place to place, and earn a precarious living by their exhibitions. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Domban, Kalaikūttādi (pole-dancer), and Ārya Kūttādi, are given as synonyms of Dommara. The Kūttādi are summed up, in the Tanjore Manual, as vagabond dancers, actors, pantomimists, and marionette exhibitors, who hold a very low position in the social scale, and always perform in public streets and bazaars.
By Mr. F. S. Mullaly[60] the Dommaras are divided into Reddi or Kāpu (i.e., cultivators) and Āray (Marātha). “The women,” he writes, “are proficient in making combs of horn and wood, and implements used by weavers. These they hawk about from place to place, to supplement the profits they derive from their exhibitions of gymnastic feats. In addition to performing conjuring tricks, rope-dancing and the like, the Dommaras hunt, fish, make mats, and rear donkeys and pigs. The head of the tribe is called the Mutli Guru. He is their high priest, and exercises supreme jurisdiction over them both in spiritual and temporal matters. His head-quarters is Chitvēl in the Cuddapah district. The legend regarding the office of the Mutli Guru is as follows. At Chitvēl, or as it was then known Mutli, there once lived a king, who called together a gathering of all the gymnasts among his subjects. Several classes were represented. Pōlērigādu, a Reddi Dommara, so pleased the king that he was presented with a ring, and a royal edict was passed that the wearer of the ring and his descendants should be the head of the Dommara class. The ring then given is said to be the same that is now worn by the head of the tribe at Chitvēl, which bears an inscription in Telugu declaring that the wearer is the high-priest or guru of all the Dommaras. The office is hereditary. The dwellings of the Dommaras are somewhat similar to those of the Koravars and Joghis, made of palmyra leaves plaited into mats with seven strands. These huts, or gudisays, are located on the outskirts of villages, and carried on the backs of donkeys when on the march. Stolen cloths, unless of value, are not as a rule sold, but concealed in the packs of their donkeys, and after a time worn. The Dommaras are addicted to dacoity, robbery, burglary, and thefts. The instrument used by them is unlike those used by other criminal classes: it is of iron, about a foot long, and with a chisel-shaped point. As cattle and sheep lifters they are expert, and they have their regular receivers at most of the cattle fairs throughout the Presidency.”