Many Koravas examined by Mr. Mainwaring were injured in one way or another. One man had his left nostril split, and explained that it was the result of a bite by another Korava in the course of a drunken brawl at a toddy-shop. Another had lost some of his teeth in a similar quarrel, and a third was minus the lobe of his right ear.
A characteristic of the Koravas, which is well marked, is their hairlessness. They have plenty of straight hair on the head, but their bodies are particularly smooth. Even the pubic hairs are scanty, and the abdominal hairs are abundant only in a few instances. The Korava is not, in appearance, the typical criminal of one’s imagination, of the Bill Sykes type. That even the innocent looking individuals are criminal by nature, the following figures establish. In 1902, there were 739 Koravas, or Korchas as they are called in the Anantapur district, on the police registers as members of wandering gangs or ordinary suspects. Of these, no less than 215, or 29 per cent., had at least one conviction recorded against them. In the Nellore district, in 1903, there were 54 adult males on the register, of whom no less than 24, or 44 per cent., had convictions against them. In the Salem district, in the same year, there were 118 adult male Koravas registered, against 38, or 32.2 per cent. of whom convictions stood. There are, of course, hundreds who escape active surveillance by assuming an ostensible means of livelihood, and allowances must be made for the possibility of numbers escaping conviction for offences they may have committed. The women are equally criminal with the men, but are less frequently caught. They have no hesitation in concealing small articles by passing them into the vagina. The best way of ascertaining whether this has been done is said to be to make them jump. In this way, at a certain feast, a gold jewel was recovered from a woman, and she was convicted.[213] This expedient is, however, not always effectual. A case came under notice, in 1901, at the Kolar gold fields, in which a woman had a small packet of stolen gold amalgam passed to her during the search of the house by her husband, who was suspected. She begged permission to leave the house to urinate. The request was granted, and a constable who went with her on her return reported her conduct as suspicious. A female searcher was procured, and the parcel found jammed transversely in the vagina, and required manipulation to dislodge it. Small jewels, which the Koravas manage to steal, are at once concealed in the mouth, and even swallowed. When swallowed, the jewel is next day recovered with the help of a purgative. In this way a half sovereign was recovered a few years ago.[214] Male Koravas sometimes conceal stolen articles in the rectum. In the Tanjore district a Korava Kēpmari, who was suspected of having resorted to this dodge, was examined by a medical officer, and two thin gold chains, each about 14 inches long, were extracted. The females take an important part in resisting an attempt to arrest the males. I am informed that, “when a raid is made on an encampment, the males make off, while the females, stripping themselves, dance in a state of nudity, hoping thereby to attract the constables to them, while the males get clear away. Should, however, these manœuvres fail to attain their object, the females proceed to lacerate the pudenda, from which blood flows profusely. They then lie down as if dead. The unfortunate constables, though proof against amorous advances, must perforce assist them in their distress. If it comes to searching Korava huts, the females take a leading part in attacking the intruders, and will not hesitate to stone them, or break chatties (earthen pots) on their heads.”
It is recorded, in the Cuddapah Manual, that “a Yerukala came to a village, and, under the pretence of begging, ascertained which women wore jewels, and whether the husbands of any such were employed at night in the fields. In the night he returned, and, going to the house he had previously marked, suddenly snatched up the sleeping woman by the massive kamma (gold ear-ring) she wore, sometimes with such violence as to lift up the woman, and always in such a way as to wrench off the lobe of the ear. This trick he repeated in three different hamlets of the same village on one night, and in one house on two women. In one case, the woman had been lifted so high that, when the ear gave way, she fell to the ground, and severely injured her head.” A new form of house robbery is said to have been started by the Koravas in recent years. They mark down the residence of a woman, whose jewels are worth stealing, and lurk outside the house before dawn. Then, when the woman comes out, as is the custom, before the men are stirring, they snatch her ear-rings and other ornaments, and are gone before an alarm can be raised.[215] Another favourite method of securing jewelry is for the Korava to beg for rice, from door to door, on a dark night, crying “Sandi bichcham, Amma, Sandi bichcham” (night alms, mother, night alms). Arrived at the house of his victim, he cries out, and the lady of the house brings out a handful of rice, and puts it in his pot. As she does so, he makes a grab at her tāli or other neck ornament, and makes off with the spoil.
“Stolen property”, Mr. Mullaly writes,[216] “is disposed of, as soon as they can get a suitable remuneration. The general bargain is Re. I for a rupee’s weight of gold. They do not, however, as a rule, lose much over their transactions, and invariably convert their surplus into sovereigns. In searching a Koravar encampment on one occasion, the writer had the good fortune to discover a number of sovereigns which, for safe keeping, were stitched in the folds of their pack saddles. Undisposed of property, which had been buried, is brought to the encampment at nightfall, and taken back and re-buried before dawn. The ground round the pegs, to which their asses are tethered, in heaps of ashes or filth, are favourite places for burying plunder.”
The Koravas disguise themselves as Kēpmaris, Alagiris or pūjāris. The terms Kēpmari, Alagiri, Kathirivāndlu, etc., are applied to certain persons who adopt particular methods in committing crime, all of which are adopted by the Koravas. The Tamil equivalent of Kēpmari is Talapa Mathi, or one who changes his head-dress. Alagiris are thieves who worship at the temple of Kalla Alagar near Madura, and vow that a percentage of their ill-gotten gains will be given as an offering to his temple. Kathirivāndlu (scissors people) are those who operate with knives or scissors, snipping off chains, cutting the strings of purses, and ripping open bags or pockets.
The Koravas are not nice as regards the selection of some of their food. Cats, fowls, fish, pigs, the black-faced monkey known in Telugu as kondamuchu, jackals, field rats, deer, antelope, goats and sheep serve as articles of dietary. There is a Tamil proverb “Give an elephant to a pandit, and a cat to a Kuravan.” They will not eat cattle or buffaloes, and will not take food in company with Muhammadans, barbers, washermen, carpenters, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, Paraiyans or Chakkiliyans. The Bōyas seem to be the lowest class with whom they will eat. They drink heavily when funds are available, or at social gatherings, when free drinks are forthcoming. At council meetings liquor must be supplied by the disputants, and there is a proverb, “With dry mouths nothing can be uttered.”
Most Koravas possess knives, and a kind of billhook, called koduvāl, which is a sort of compromise between a sword and a sickle. The back of the blade is heavy, and renders it capable of dealing a very severe blow. With this implement animals are slaughtered, murders committed, and bamboos split.
For the purpose of committing burglaries, the Koravas are said by Mr. Mullaly to use an iron instrument pointed at either end, called gādi kōlu or sillu kōlu, which is offered, before a gang sets out, to Perumāl, whose aid in the success of the undertaking is invoked.
The Koravas as a class are industrious, and generally doing something. One may see the men on the march twisting threads into stout cord. Others will be making fine nets for fishing, or coarse ones, in which to suspend household pots or utensils; straw pads, on which the round-bottomed chatties invariably stand; or a design with red thread and cowry shells, wherewith to decorate the head of a bull or a money-bag. It is when hawking these articles from door to door that the Koravas are said to gain information as to property which may be worth stealing. The following is a free translation of a song representing Koracha characteristics, in a play by Mr. D. Krishnamacharlu, a well-known amateur dramatist of Bellary:—
Hurrah! Our Koracha caste is a very fine caste,