What if the carpenter’s wife has become a widow? This would seem to refer to the former practice of widow remarriage.
The carpenter wants (his wood) too long, and the blacksmith wants (his iron) too short, i.e., a carpenter can easily shorten a piece of wood, and a blacksmith can easily hammer out a piece of iron.
When a Kammālan buys cloth, the stuff he buys is so thin that it does not hide the hair on his legs.
Kammālan (Malayālam).—“The Kammālans of Malabar,” Mr. Francis writes,[78] “are artisans, like those referred to immediately above, but they take a lower position than the Kammālans and Kamsalas of the other coast, or the Pānchālas of the Canarese country. They do not claim to be Brāhmans or wear the sacred thread, and they accept the position of a polluting caste, not being allowed into the temples or into Brāhman houses. The highest sub-division is Asāri, the men of which are carpenters, and wear the thread at certain ceremonies connected with house-building.”
According to Mr. F. Fawcett “the orthodox number of classes of Kammālans is five. But the artisans do not admit that the workers in leather belong to the guild, and say that there are only four classes. According to them, the fifth class was composed of coppersmiths, who, after the exodus, remained in Izhuva land, and did not return thence with them to Malabar.[79] Nevertheless, they always speak of themselves as the Ayen Kudi or five-house Kammālans. The carpenters say that eighteen families of their community remained behind in Izhuva land. Some of these returned long afterwards, but they were not allowed to rejoin the caste. They are known as Puzhi Tachan or sand carpenters, and Pathinettanmar or the eighteen people. There are four families of this class now living at or near Parpan gadi. They are carpenters, but the Asāris treat them as outcastes.”
For the following note on Malabar Kammālans I am indebted to Mr. S. Appadorai Iyer. The five artisan classes, or Ayinkudi Kammālans, are made up of the following:—
- Asāri, carpenters.
- Mūsāri, braziers.
- Tattān, goldsmiths.
- Karumān, blacksmiths.
- Chembotti or Chempotti, coppersmiths.
The name Chembotti is derived from chembu, copper, and kotti, he who beats. They are, according to Mr. Francis, “coppersmiths in Malabar, who are distinct from the Malabar Kammālans. They are supposed to be descendants of men who made copper idols for temples, and so rank above the Kammālans in social position, and about equally with the lower sections of the Nāyars.”
The Kammālans will not condescend to eat food at the hands of Kurups, Tōlkollans, Pulluvans, Mannāns, or Tandans. But a Tandan thinks it equally beneath his dignity to accept food from a Kammālan. The Kammālans believe themselves to be indigenous in Malabar, and boast that their system of polyandry is the result of the sojourn of the exiled Pāndavas, with their common wife Pānchāli, and their mother Kunthi, in the forest of the Walluvanād division. They say that the destruction of the Pāndavas was attempted in the Arakkuparamba amsam of this division, and that the Tac’chans (artisans) were given as a reward by the Kurus the enjoyment of Tacchanattukara amsam. They state further that the Pāndus lived for some time at the village of Bhīmanād, and went to the Attapādi valley, where they deposited their cooking utensils at the spot where the water falls from a height of several hundred feet. This portion of the river is called Kuntipuzha, and the noise of the water, said to be falling on the upset utensils, is heard at a great distance.
The Kammālans, male and female, dress like Nāyars, and their ornaments are almost similar to those of the Nāyars, with this difference, that the female Tattān wears a single chittu or ring in the right ear only.