“A knowledge,” Mr. Fawcett writes, “of these house or sept names may be useful in order to establish a man’s identity, as a Koravar, who is generally untruthful as to his own name, is seldom if ever so as regards his house or sept name, and his father’s name. He considers it shameful to lie about his parentage, ‘to be born to one, and yet to give out the name of another.’ Totemism of some kind evidently exists, but it is rather odd that it has not always any apparent connection with the sept or house name. Thus, the totem of persons of the Konēti sept is horse-gram (kollu in Tamil), which they hold in veneration, and will not touch, eat, or use in any way. The totem of the Samudrāla sept is the conch shell, which likewise will not be used by those of the sept in any manner. It may be noted that persons of the Ramēswari sept will not eat tortoises, while those of the Konēti sept are in some manner obliged to do so on certain occasions.”

As regards names for specific occupations among the Koravas, the Bīdar or nomad Koravas originally carried merchandise in the form of salt, tamarinds, jaggery (crude sugar or molasses), leaves of the curry leaf plant (Murraya Kœnigii) from place to place on pack-bullocks or donkeys. The leaves were in great demand, and those who brought them round for sale were called in Tamil Karuvaipillai, and in Telugu Karepāku, after the commodity which they carried. This is a common custom in India, and when driving through the bazār, one may hear, for example, an old woman carrying a bundle of wood addressed as firewood. “Kāvadi” will be screamed at a man carrying a pole (kāvadi) with baskets, etc., suspended from it, who got in the way of another. The section of Koravas who carried salt inland from the coast became known as Uppu (salt) Koravas. Another large class are the Thubba, Dhubbai, or Dhabbai (split bamboo) Koravas, who restrict their wanderings to the foot of hill ranges, where bamboos are obtainable. With these they make baskets for the storage of grain, for carrying manure at the bottom of carts, and various fancy articles. In the Kurnool district, the Yerukalas will only cut bamboos at the time of the new moon, as they are then supposed to be free from attacks by boring weevils, and they do certain pūja (worship) to the goddess Malalamma, who presides over the bamboos. In the Nallamalai forests, the Yerukalas do not split the bamboo into pieces and remove the whole, but take off only a very thin strip consisting of the outer rind. The strips are made up into long bundles, which can be removed by donkeys. There is extreme danger of fire, because the inner portions of the bamboos, left all over the forest, are most inflammable.[204] Instead of splitting the bamboos in the forest, and leaving behind a lot of combustible material, the Yerukalas now have to purchase whole bamboos, and take them outside the forest to split them. The members of a gang of these Yerukalas, who came before me at Nandyāl, were each carrying a long split bamboo wand as an occupational insigne. A further important section is that of the Kunchu or Kunchil Koravas, who gather roots in the jungle, and make them into long brushes which are used by weavers. The Koravas have a monopoly in their manufacture, and take pride in making good brushes. These Kunchu Koravas are excellent shikāris (hunters), and snare antelope, partridges, duck, quail, and other game with great skill. For the purpose of shooting antelopes, or of getting close enough to the young ones to catch them after a short run, they use a kind of shield made of dried twigs ragged at the edges, which looks like an enormous wind-blown bundle of grass. When they come in sight of a herd of antelopes, they rest one edge of the shield on the ground, and, sitting on their heels behind it, move it slowly forward towards the herd until they get sufficiently close to dash at the young ones, or shoot the grown-up animals. The antelopes are supposed to mistake the shield for a bush, and to fail to notice its gradual approach. They capture duck and teal largely at night, and go to the rice fields below a tank (pond or lake), in which the crop is young, and the ground consequently not entirely obscured. This would be a likely feeding-ground, or traces of duck having fed there on the previous night might be noticed. They peg a creeper from one bund (mud embankment) to another, parallel to the tank bund, four inches above the water in the field. From this they suspend a number of running loops made of sinews drawn from the legs of sheep or goats or from the hind-legs of hares, the lower ends of the loops touching the mud under water. If the duck or teal come to feed, they are sure to be caught, and fall victims to the slip noose. “The Kuntsu (Kunchu) Korachas,” Mr. Francis tells us,[205] “catch small birds by liming twigs or an arrangement of bits of bamboo with a worm hung inside it, or by setting horse-hair nooses round the nests. Quails they capture by freely snaring a piece of ground, and then putting a quail in a cage in the middle of it, to lure the birds towards the snare. They also catch them, and partridges too, by driving the bevy towards a collapsible net. To do this, they cover themselves with a dark blanket, conceal their heads in a kind of big hat made of hair, feathers and grass, and stalk the birds from a bullock trained to the work, very gradually driving them into the net. They also occasionally capture black-buck (antelope) by sending a tame buck with nooses on his horns to fight with a wild one. The latter speedily gets his horns entangled in the nooses, and is easily secured.” Sometimes the Kunchu Korava begs in villages, dragging about with him a monkey, while the females earn a livelihood by tattooing, which occupation, known as pricking with green, has gained for them the name of Pacchai (green) Kutti. The patterns used in tattooing by a Korava woman, whom I interviewed, were drawn in a note-book, and consisted of fishes, scorpions, a fortress, five-storeyed house, conventional designs, etc. The patterns were drawn on the skin, with great dexterity and skill in freehand drawing, by means of a blunt stick dipped in a mixture of a lamp-black, lamp-oil, and turmeric contained in a half cocoanut shell. The pattern is pricked in with a bundle of four or five needles tied together. The needles and drawing-stick were kept in a hollow bamboo, and the tattooing mixture in the scooped out fruits of the bael (Ægle Marmelos) and palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer). For tattooing an entire upper extremity, at several sittings, the Korava woman would be paid from eight to twelve annas, or receive food-grains in lieu of money. The hot weather is said to be more favourable for the operation than the cold season, as the swelling after it is less. To check this, lamp-oil, turmeric, and leaves of the avarai plant (Dolichos Lablab) are applied.

Concerning the Pacchaikuttis, or, as they are also called, Gadde (soothsayers), Mr. Paupa Rao Naidu writes that “the women start with a basket and a winnowing basket or tray into a village, proclaiming their ostensible profession of tattooing and soothsaying, which they do for grain or money. When unfortunate village women, who always lose children or who often fall ill, see these Gadde women moving about, they call them into their houses, make them sit, and, pouring some grain into their baskets, ask them about their past misery and future lot. These women, who are sufficiently trained to speak in suitable language, are clever enough to give out some yarns in equivocal terms, so that the anxious women, who hope for better futurity, understand them in the light uppermost in their own minds. The Korava women will be rewarded duly, and doubly too, for they never fail to study the nature of the house all the time, to see if it offers a fair field for booty to their men.”

At Srungavarapukōta in the Vizagapatam district “the local goddess, Yerakamma, is a deification of a woman who committed sati. Ballads are sung about her, which say that she was the child of Dāsari parents, and that her birth was foretold by a Yerukala woman (whence her name) who prophesied that she would have the gift of second sight. She eventually married, and one day she begged her husband not to go to his field, as she was sure he would be killed by a tiger if he did. Her husband went notwithstanding, and was slain as she had foreseen. She committed sati on the spot where her shrine still stands.”[206]

The Ūr or village Koravas have given up their nomad life, and settled in villages of their own, or together with other communities. Many of them have attended pial schools, and can read and write to some extent. Some of them are employed in the police and salt departments, as jail warders, etc. The Ūr Korava is fast losing his individuality, and assimilating, in dress, manners and customs, the ryots among whom he dwells. In the Salem district there is a village called Koravūr, which is inhabited entirely by Koravas, who say that they were originally Uppu Koravas, but now cultivate their own lands, or work as agricultural labourers for the land-owners. They say further that they pay an occasional visit to Madras for the purpose of replenishing their stock of coral and beads, which they sell at local shandis (markets). Some Koravas are said to buy gilded beads at Madura, and cheat unsuspecting villagers by selling them as gold. Though the Ūr Koravas are becoming civilised, they have not yet lost their desire for other men’s goods, and are reported to be the curse of the Anantapur, Cuddapah, and Bellary districts, where they commit robbery, house-breaking, and theft, especially of sheep and cattle. A particularly bold sheep theft by them a few years ago is worthy of mention. The village of Singanamalla in the Anantapur district lies a few miles off the railway. It is bordered on two sides by Government forest reserves, into which the villagers regularly drove their sheep and goats to graze, in charge of small boys, in the frequent absences of the forest watcher, or when the watcher was well disposed towards them. An arrangement was made between the Koravas and a meat-supplier at Bangalore to deliver on his behalf a large number of sheep at a wayside station near Dharmāvaram, to receive which trucks had to be ready, and the transaction was purely cash. One morning, when more than a hundred sheep had been driven far into the reserve by their youthful charges, who kept more or less close together for the sake of company, a number of Koravas turned up, and represented themselves as forest watchers, captured the small boys, gagged them and tied them to trees, and drove off all the available sheep. The boys were not discovered till late at night, and the police did not get to work till the following morning, by which time the sheep were safely entrained for Bangalore.

It is noted, in the Madras Police Report, 1905–1906, that “a large number of members of the notorious Rudrapād Koracha gangs have recently been released from His Highness the Nizam’s prisons, and their return will add appreciably to the difficulties of the Bellary Police.”

A small class of Koravas is named Pāmula (snake), as they follow the calling of snake-charmers. In the Census Report, 1901, Pūsalavādu (seller of glass beads) and Utlavādu (makers of utlams) are given as sub-castes of Yerukala. An utlam is a hanging receptacle for pots, etc., made of palmyra fibre. In the same report, Kādukuttukiravar (those who bore a hole in the ear) and Valli Ammai Kūttam (followers of the goddess Valli Ammai) are returned as synonyms of Koravas. They claim that Valli Ammai, the wife of the god Subrahmanya, was a Korava woman. Old Tamil books refer to the Koravas as fortune-tellers to kings and queens, and priests to Subrahmanya. Some Koravas have, at times of census, returned themselves as Kūdaikatti (basket-making) Vanniyans. Balfour refers to Walaja Koravas, and states that they are musicians. They are probably identical with the Wooyaloo Koravas,[207] whose duty it is to swing incense, and sing before the god during a religious celebration. The same writer speaks of Bajantri or Sonai Kolawaru and Kolla and Soli Korawars, and states that they inhabit the Southern Marātha country. These names, like Thōgamallai for Koravas who come from the village of that name in the Trichinopoly district, are probably purely local. Further, the Abbé Dubois states that “the third species of Kuravers is generally known under the name of Kalla Bantru, or robbers. The last Muhammadan prince who reigned over Mysore is said to have employed a regular battalion of these men in time of war, not for the purpose of fighting, but to infest the enemy’s camp in the night, stealing away the horses and other necessaries of the officers, and acting as spies. They were awarded in proportion to the dexterity they displayed in these achievements, and, in time of peace, they were despatched into the various States of neighbouring princes, to rob for the benefit of their masters.” It is possible that the Kaikadis of the Central Provinces are identical with Koravas, who have migrated thither.

A section of Koravas, called Koot (dancing) or Kōthee (monkey) Kaikaries, is referred to by Mr. Paupa Rao Naidu as “obtaining their living by prostitution. They also kidnap or sell children for this purpose. Some of the women of this class are thriving well in the Madras Presidency as experts in dancing. They are kept by rich people, and are called in the Telugu country Erukala Bōgamvaru, in Tamil Korava Thevidia. They also train monkeys, and show them to the public.”

The household god of the Korava, which is as a rule very rudely carved, may be a representation of either Vishnu or Siva. As already noted, it is stated in the Census Report, 1901, that the Koravas worship Subrahmanya, the son of Siva, while the Yerukalas worship Vishnu in the form of Venkatēswara and his wife Lakshmi. They worship, in addition to these, Kolāpuriamma, Perumālaswāmi, and other appropriate deities, prior to proceeding on a depredatory expedition. Kolāpuriamma is the goddess of Kolhapūr, the chief town of the Native State of that name in the Bombay Presidency, who is famous in Southern India. Perumālswāmi, or Venkatēswara, is the god of Tirupati, the great place of pilgrimage in the North Arcot district. The signs of a recent performance of worship by Koravas may prove an indication to the Police that they have been concerned in a dacoity, and act as a clue to detection thereof. They sacrifice sheep or goats once a year to their particular god on a Sunday or Tuesday, while those who worship Venkatēswara honour him on a Saturday, and break cocoanuts as an offering. All offerings presented to the gods are divided among those present, after the ceremonies have been completed. Venkatēswara is said to be sometimes represented, for the purpose of worship, by a brass vessel (kalasam) decorated with flowers, and bearing on it the Vaishnavite nāmam (sect mark). Its mouth is closed by a cocoanut, beneath which mango or betel leaves are placed. On the day appointed for the religious service, everything within the hut is thrown outside, and the floor is purified with cow-dung, and devices are drawn thereon. The brass vessel is set up, and offerings of large quantities of food are made to it. Some of this dedicated food (prasādam) must be given to all the inhabitants of the settlement. A lump of clay, squeezed into a conical shape, with a tuft of margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves does duty for Pōlēramma. In front thereof, three stones are placed. Pōlēramma may be worshipped close to, but not within, the hut. To her offerings of boiled rice (pongal) are made by fasting women. The manner in which the boiling food bubbles over from the cooking-pot is eagerly watched, and accepted as an omen for good or evil. In a note on the Coorroo, Balfour states[208] that “they told me that, when they pray, they construct a small pyramid of clay, which they term Māriamma, and worship it. The women had small gold and silver ornaments suspended from cords round their necks, which they said had been supplied to them by a goldsmith, from whom they had ordered figures of Māriamma. The form represented is that of the goddess Kāli. They mentioned that they had been told by their forefathers that, when a good man dies, his spirit enters the body of some of the better animals, as that of a horse or cow, and that a bad man’s spirit gives life to the form of a dog or jackal, but they did not seem to believe in it. They believe firmly, however, in the existence and constant presence of a principle of evil, who, they say, frequently appears, my informant having himself often seen it in the dusk of the evening assuming various forms, at times a cat, anon a goat, and then a dog, taking these shapes that it might approach to injure him.”