Concerning the marriage ceremony of the Kurubas of North Arcot, Mr. Stuart writes as follows. “As a preliminary to the marriage, the bridegroom’s father observes certain marks or curls on the head of the proposed bride. Some of these are believed to forebode prosperity, and others only misery to the family, into which the girl enters. They are, therefore, very cautious in selecting only such girls as possess curls (suli) of good fortune. This curious custom, obtaining among this primitive tribe, is observed by others only in the case of the purchase of cows, bulls, and horses. One of the good curls is the bāshingam found on the forehead; and the bad ones are the pēyanākallu at the back of the head, and the edirsuli near the right temple. But widowers seeking for wives are not generally particular in this respect. [As bad curls are supposed to cause the death of the man who is their possessor, she is, I am informed, married to a widower.] The marriage is celebrated in the bridegroom’s house, and, if the bride belongs to a different village, she is escorted to that of the bridegroom, and is made to wait in a particular spot outside it, selected for the occasion. On the first day of the marriage, pūrna kumbam, a small decorated vessel containing milk or ghī, with a two-anna piece and a cocoanut placed on the betel leaf spread over the mouth of it, is taken by the bridegroom’s relations to meet the bride’s party. Therethe distribution of pān supāri takes place, and both parties return to the village. Meanwhile, the marriage booth is erected, and twelve twigs of nāval (Eugenia Jambolana) are tied to the twelve pillars, the central or milk post, under which the bridal pair sit, being smeared with turmeric, and a yellow thread being tied thereto. At an auspicious hour of the third day, the couple are made to sit in the booth, the bridegroom facing the east, and the bride facing west. On a blanket spread near the kumbam, 2½ measures of rice, a tāli or bottu, one cocoanut, betel leaf and camphor are placed. The Gaudu places a ball of vibhūti (sacred ashes) thereon, breaks a cocoanut, and worships the kumbam, while camphor is burnt. The Gaudu next takes the tāli, blesses it, and gives it to the bridegroom, who ties it round the bride’s neck. The Gaudu then, throwing rice on the heads of the pair, recites a song, in which the names of various people are mentioned, and concluding ‘Oh! happy girl; Oh! prosperous girl; Basava has come; remove your veil.’ The girl then removes her veil, and the men and women assembled throw rice on the heads of the bridal pair. The ends of their garments are then tied together, and two girls and three boys are made to eat out of the plates placed before the married couple. A feast to all their relations completes the ceremony. The Gaudu receives 2½ measures of rice, five handfuls of nuts and betel leaf, and twelve saffrons (pieces of turmeric) as his fee. Even though the girl has attained puberty, the nuptial ceremony is not coincident with the wedding, but is celebrated a few months later.” In like manner, among the Kammas, Gangimakkulu, and other classes, consummation does not take place until three months after the marriage ceremony, as it is considered unlucky to have three heads of a family in a household during the first year of marriage. By the delay, the birth of a child should take place only in the second year, so that, during the first year, there will be only two heads, husband and wife. At a marriage among the Kurubas of the Madura district, a chicken is waved in front of the contracting couple, to avert the evil eye. The maternal uncle’s consent to a marriage is necessary, and, at the wedding, he leads the bride to the pandal. A Kuruba may, I am informed, marry two sisters, either on the death of one of them, or if his first wife has no issue, or suffers from an incurable disease. Some twenty years ago, when an unmarried Kuruba girl was taken to a temple, to be initiated as a Basavi (dedicated prostitute), the caste men prosecuted the father as a protest against the practice.
In the North Arcot district, according to Mr. Stuart, “the mother and child remain in a separate hut for the first ten days after delivery. On the eleventh day, all the Kuruba females of the village bring each a pot of hot water, and bathe the mother and child. Betel and nuts are distributed, and all the people of the village eat in the mother’s house. On the next market-day, her husband, with some of his male friends, goes to a neighbouring market, and consults with a Korava or Yerukala what name is to be given to the child, and the name he mentions is then given to it.” In a case which came before the police in the Bellary district in 1907, a woman complained that her infant child had been taken away, and concealed in the house of another woman, who was pregnant. The explanation of the abduction was that there is a belief that, if a pregnant woman keeps a baby in her bed, she will have no difficulty at the time of delivery.
Remarriage of widows is permitted. The ceremony is performed in a temple or dark room, and the tāli is tied by a widow, a woman dedicated to the deity, or a Dāsayya (mendicant) of their own caste. According to another account, a widow is not allowed to wear a tāli, but is presented with a cloth. Hence widow marriage is called Sirē Udiki. Children of widows are married into families in which no widow remarriage has taken place, and are treated like ordinary members of the community.
In Western Bellary I gathered that the dead are buried, those who have been married with the face upwards, others with the face downwards. The grave is dug north and south, and the head is placed to the south. Earth is thrown into the grave by relations before it is filled in. A mound is raised over it, and three stones are set up, over the head, navel, and feet. The eldest son of the deceased places on his left shoulder a pot filled with water, in the bottom of which three small holes are made, through which the water escapes. Proceeding from the spot beneath which the head rests, he walks round the grave, and then drops the pot so that it falls on the mound, and goes home without looking back. This ceremony is a very important one with both Kurubas and Bēdars. In the absence of a direct heir, he who carries the pot claims the property of the deceased, and is considered to be the inheritor thereof. For the propitiation of ancestors, cooked rice and sweetmeats, with a new turban and cloth or petticoat, according to the sex of the deceased, are offered up. Ancestors who died childless, unless they left property, do not receive homage. It is noted, in the Bellary Gazetteer, that “an unusual rite is in some cases observed after deaths, a pot of water being worshipped in the house on the eleventh day after the funeral, and taken the next morning and emptied in some lonely place. The ceremony is named the calling back of the dead, but its real significance is not clear.”
Of the death ceremonies in the North Arcot district, Mr. Stuart writes that “the son, or, in his absence, a near relative goes round the grave three times, carrying a pot of water, in which he makes a hole at each round. On the third round he throws down the pot, and returns home straight, without turning his face towards the direction of the grave. For three days, the four carriers of the bier are not admitted into their houses, but they are fed at the cost of the deceased’s heir. On the the third day, cooked rice, a fowl and water are taken to the burial-ground, and placed near the grave, to be eaten by the spirit of the dead. The son, and all his relations, return home, beating on their mouths. Pollution is observed for ten days, and, on the eleventh day, sheep and fowls are killed, and a grand feast is given to the Kurumbas of the village. Before the feast commences, a leaf containing food is placed in a corner of the house, and worshipped. This is removed on the next morning, and placed over the roof, to be eaten by crows. If the deceased be a male, the glass bangles worn by his wife on her right arm are broken on the same day.”
The patron saint of the Kurubas is Bīrappa or Bīradēvaru, and they will not ride on horses or ponies, as these are the vehicles of the god. But they worship, in addition, various minor deities, e.g., Uligamma, Mallappa, Anthargattamma, Kencharāya, and have their house gods, who are worshipped either by a house or by an entire exogamous sept. In some places, Māriamma and Sunkulamma are worshipped on Tuesday and Friday, and the sheep and other offerings are the perquisite of Bōyas, Mālas, and Mādigas. Some families of Kuruba Dāsaris reverence a goddess called Hombālamma, who is worshipped secretly by a pūjāri (priest) at dead of night. Everything used in connection with the rite is buried or otherwise disposed of before morning. The Kurubas show reverence for the jammi tree (Prosopis spicigera) and ashwatham (Ficus religiosa) by not cutting them. It was noticed by Mr. F. Fawcett that, at the temples of the village goddesses Wannathamma and Durgamma in the Bellary district, an old Kuruba woman performs the daily worship. In the mantapam of the temple at Lēpākshi, in the Anantapur district, “is the sculptured figure of a man leaning his chin upon his hands, which is said to represent a Kuruba who once acted as mediator between the builder of the temple and his workmen in a dispute about wages. The image is still bathed in oil, and worshipped by the local Kurubas, who are proud of the important part played by their caste-man.”[50] In Mysore, the Kurubas are said to worship a box, which they believe contains the wearing apparel of Krishna under the name of Junjappa. One of the goddesses worshipped by the Kurubas is named Kēlu Dēvaru or Manē Hennu Dēvaru, the pot or household deity. She is worshipped annually at the Dasara festival, and, on occasions of marriage, just before the tāli is tied. The pot is made by a Kumbāra (potter), who is well paid for his work. During its manufacture, he has to take only one meal daily, and to avoid pollution of all kinds. The clay should be kneaded with the hands, and wetted with milk, milk of tender cocoanuts, and water. When at work on it, the potter should close his mouth with a bandage, so that his breath may not defile the pot. The Kurubas who are settled in the Madura district reverence Vīra Lakkamma (Lakshmi) as their family deity, and an interesting feature in connection with the worship of their goddess is that cocoanuts are broken on the head of a special Kuruba, who becomes possessed by the deity.
The Kurubas are ancestor worshippers, and many of them have in their possession golden discs called hithāradha tāli, with the figures of one or more human beings stamped on them. The discs are made by Akasāles (goldsmiths), who stamp them from steel dies. They are either kept in the house, or worn round the neck by women. If the deceased was a celebrity in the community, a large plate is substituted for a disc.
Concerning the religion of the Kurubas, Mr. Francis writes as follows. “The most striking point about the caste is its strong leaning towards the Lingāyat faith. Almost everywhere, Jangams are called in as priests, and allegiance to the Lingāyat maths (religious institutions) is acknowledged, and in places (Kāmalāpuram for example), the ceremonies at weddings and funerals have been greatly modified in the direction of the Lingāyat pattern.”[51] “In the North Arcot district, the Gaudu is entrusted with the custody of a golden image representing the hero of the clan, and keeps it carefully in a small box filled with turmeric powder. There are also some images set up in temples built for the purpose. Once a year, several neighbouring clans assemble at one of their bigger temples, which is lighted with ghī, and, placing their images in a row, offer to them flowers, cocoanuts, milk, etc., but they do not slay any victim. On the last day of their festival, the Kurumbas take a bath, worship a bull, and break cocoanuts upon the heads of pūjāris who have an hereditary right to this distinction, and upon the head of the sacred bull. Some Kurumbas do not adopt this apparently inhuman practice. A pūjāri or priest, supposed to have some supernatural power, officiates, and begins by breaking a few nuts on the heads of those nearest to him, and then the rest go on, the fragments belonging by right to those whose skulls have cracked them, and who value the pieces as sacred morsels of food. For a month before this ceremony, all the people have taken no meat, and for three days the pūjāris have lived on fruits and milk alone. At the feast, therefore, all indulge in rather immoderate eating, but drink no liquor, calling excitedly upon their particular god to grant them a prosperous year. The temples of this caste are usually rather extensive, but rude, low structures, resembling an enclosed mantapam supported upon rough stone pillars, with a small inner shrine, where the idols are placed during festival time. A wall of stone encloses a considerable space round the temple, and this is covered with small structures formed of four flat stones, three being the walls, and the fourth the roof. The stone facing the open side has a figure sculptured upon it, representing the deceased Gaudu, or pūjāri, to whom it is dedicated. For each person of rank one of these monuments is constructed, and here periodically, and always during the annual feasts, pūja is made not only to the spirits of the deceased chiefs, but also to those of all who have died in the clan. It seems impossible not to connect this with those strange structures called by the natives Pāndava’s temples. They are numerous where the Kurumbas are now found, and are known to have been raised over the dead. Though the Kurumbas bury, they do not now raise their monuments over the resting place of the corpse. Nor can they build them upon anything approaching to the gigantic scale of the ancient kistvaen or dolmen.”[52] It was noted by a correspondent of the Indian Antiquary[53] that, in the Kaladgi ‘district,’ he “came across the tomb of a Kuruba only four years old. It was a complete miniature dolmen about eighteen inches every way, composed of four stones, one at each side, one at the rear, and a cap-stone. The interior was occupied by two round stones about the size of a man’s fist, painted red, the deceased resting in his mother earth below.” In the open country near Kadūr in Mysore, is a shrine of Bīradēvaru, which consists of four stone pillars several feet in height surmounted by flat slabs as a cap-stone, within which the deity is represented by round stones, and stones with snakes carved on them are deposited. Within the Kuruba quarter of the town, the shrine of Anthargattamma is a regular dolmen beneath a margosa (Melia Azadirachta) tree, in which the goddess is represented by rounded stones imbedded in a mound of earth. Just outside the same town, close to a pīpal tree (Ficus religiosa) are two smaller dolmen-like structures containing stones representing two Kuruba Dāsaris, one a centenarian, who are buried there.
Kuruba Biradēvaru temple.