By some Koravas, a ceremony in honour of the departed ancestors is performed at the time of the November new moon. A well-polished brass vessel, with red and white marks on it, is placed in the corner of a room, which has previously been swept, and purified with cow-dung. In front of the pot is placed a leaf plate, on which cooked rice and other edibles are set. Incense is burned, and the eldest son of the house partakes of the food in the hope that he, in due course, will be honoured by his offspring.
The Koramas of Mysore are said to experience considerable difficulty in finding men to undertake the work of carrying the corpse to the grave. Should the dead Korama be a man who has left a young widow, it is customary for some one to propose to marry her the same day, and, by so doing, to engage to carry out the principal part of the work connected with the burial. A shallow grave, barely two feet deep, is dug, and the corpse laid therein. When the soil has been loosely piled in, a pot of fire, carried by the chief mourner in a split bamboo, is broken, and a pot of water placed on the raised mound. Should the spot be visited during the night by a pack of jackals, and the water drunk by them to slake their thirst after feasting on the dead Korama, the omen is accepted as proof that the liberated spirit has fled away to the realms of the dead, and will never trouble man, woman, child, or cattle. On the sixth day, the chief mourner must kill a fowl, and mix its blood with rice. This he places, with some betel leaves and nuts, near the grave. If it is carried off by crows, everything is considered to have been settled satisfactorily.
As regards the dress of the Koravas, Mr. Mullaly writes as follows. “The women wear necklaces of shells and cowries interspersed with beads of all colours in several rows, hanging low down on the bosom; brass bangles from the wrist to the elbow; brass, lead, and silver rings, very roughly made, on all their fingers except the middle one. The cloth peculiar to Koravar women is a coarse black one; but they are, as a rule, not particular as to this, and wear stolen cloths after removing the borders and all marks of identification. They also wear the chola, which is fastened across the bosom, and not, like the Lambādis, at the back. The men are dirty, unkempt-looking objects, wear their hair long, and usually tied in a knot on the top of the head, and indulge in little finery. A joochi (gochi), or cloth round the loins, and a bag called vadi sanchi, made of striped cloth, complete their toilet.”
In 1884, Mr. Stevenson, who was then the District Superintendent of Police, North Arcot, devised a scheme for the regeneration of the Koravas of that district. He obtained for the tribe a tract of Government land near Gudiyattam, free of assessment for ten years, and also a grant of Rs. 200 for sinking wells. Licenses were also issued to the settlers to cut firewood at specially favourable rates. He also prevailed upon the Zemindar of Karvetnegar to grant twenty-five cawnies of land in Tiruttani for ten years for another settlement, as well as some building materials. Unfortunately the impecunious condition of the Zemindar precluded the Tiruttani settlement from deriving any further privileges which were necessary to keep the colony going, and its existence was, therefore, cut short. The Gudiyattam colony, on the other hand, exhibited some vitality for two or three years, but, in 1887, it, too, went the way of the Tiruttani colony.”[226] I gather, from the Police Administration Report, 1906, that a scheme is being worked out, the object of which is to give a well-known wandering criminal gang some cultivable land, and so enable the members of it to settle down to an honest livelihood.
At the census, 1891, Korava was returned as a sub-division of Paraiyans, and the name is also applied to Jōgis employed as scavengers.[227]
The following note on the Koravas of the west coast is interesting as showing that Malabar is one of the homes of the now popular game of Diavolo, which has become epidemic in some European countries. “In Malabar, there is a class of people called Koravas, who have, from time immemorial, played this game almost in the same manner as its Western devotees do at the present time. These people are met with mostly in the southern parts of Malabar, Cochin and Travancore, and they speak the Malayālam language with a sing-song accent, which easily distinguishes them from other people. They are of wandering habits. The men are clever acrobats and rope-dancers, but those of more settled habits are engaged in agriculture and other industries. The beautiful grass mats, known as Palghat mats, are woven by these people. Their women are fortune-tellers and ballad singers. Their services are also in demand for boring the ears of girls. The ropedancers perform many wonderful feats while balancing themselves on the rope, among them being the playing of diabolo while walking to and fro on a tight rope. The Korava acrobat spins the wooden spool on a string, attached to the ends of two bamboo sticks, and throws it up to the height of a cocoanut tree, and, when it comes down, he receives it on the string, to be again thrown up. There are experts among them who can receive the spool on the string without even looking at it. There is no noteworthy difference in the structure and shape of the spool used by the Koravas, and those of Europe, except that the Malabar apparatus is a solid wooden thing a little larger and heavier than the Western toy. It has not yet emerged from the crude stage of the village carpenter’s skill, and cannot boast of rubber tyres and other embellishments which adorn the imported article; but it is heavy enough to cause a nasty injury should it hit the performer while falling. The Koravas are a very primitive people, but as acrobats and ropedancers they have continued their profession for generations past, and there is no doubt that they have been expert diabolo players for many years.”[228] It may be noted that Lieutenant Cameron, when journeying from Zanzibar to Benguela, was detained near Lake Tanganyika by a native chief. He relates as follows. “Sometimes a slave of Djonmah would amuse us by his dexterity. With two sticks about a foot long connected by a string of a certain length, he spun a piece of wood cut in the shape of an hour-glass, throwing it before and behind him, pitching it up into the air like a cricket-ball, and catching it again, while it continued to spin.”
[1] Gazetteer of the Bellary district.
[2] Madras Diocesan Magazine, June, 1906.
[3] John S. Chandler, a Madura Missionary, Boston.