Madras Census Report, 1901—”Kuruba; Kurumban.—These two have always been treated as the same caste. Mr. Thurston (Madras Mus. Bull. II, i) thinks they are distinct. I have no new information, which will clearly decide the matter, but the fact seems to be that Kurumban is the Tamil form of the Telugu or Canarese Kuruba, and that the two terms are applied to the same caste according to the language in which it is referred to. There was no confusion in the abstraction offices between the two names, and it will be seen that Kuruba is returned where Canarese and Telugu are spoken, and Kurumban where the vernacular is Tamil. There are two sharply defined bodies of Kurumbans—those who live on the Nīlgiri plateau, speak the Kurumba dialect, and are wild junglemen; and those who live on the plains, speak Canarese, and are civilised.”
Kurumba.
Mysore Census Report, 1891—Kādu Kuruba or Kurumba.—“The tribal name of Kuruba has been traced to the primeval occupation of the race, viz., the tending of sheep, perhaps when pre-historic man rose to the pastoral stage. The Uru or civilised Kurubas, who are genuine tillers of the soil, and who are dotted over the country in populous and thriving communities, and many of whom have, under the present ‘Pax Britannica,’ further developed into enterprising tradesmen and withal lettered Government officials, are the very antipodes of the Kādu or wild Kurubas or Kurumbas. The latter, like the Iruligās and Sōligās, are the denizens of the backwoods of the country, and have been correctly classed under the aboriginal population. The Tamilised name of Kurumba is applied to certain clans dwelling on the heights of the Nīlgiris, who are doubtless the offshoots of the aboriginal Kādu Kuruba stock found in Mysore.”
W. R. King. Aboriginal Tribes of the Nilgiri Hills—”Kurumbas.—This tribe is of another race from the shepherd Kurumbas. The Nīlgiri tribe have neither cattle nor sheep, and in language, dress, and customs, have no affinity whatever with their namesakes.”
G. Oppert. Original Inhabitants of India—”Kurubas or Kurumbas.—However separated from each other, and scattered among the Dravidian clans with whom they have dwelt, and however distant from one another they still live, there is hardly a province in the whole of Bharatavarasha which cannot produce, if not some living remnants of this race, at least some remains of past times which prove their presence. Indeed, the Kurumbas must be regarded as very old inhabitants of this land, who can contest with their Dravidian kinsmen the priority of occupation of the Indian soil. The terms Kuruba and Kurumba are originally identical, though the one form is, in different places, employed for the other, and has thus occasionally assumed a special local meaning. Mr. H. B. Grigg appears to contradict himself when, while speaking of the Kurumbas, he says that ‘in the low country they are called Kurubas or Cūrubāru, and are divided into such families as Ānē or elephant, Nāya or dog, Māle or hill Kurumbas.’[56] Such a distinction between mountain Kurumbas and plain Kurumbas cannot be established. The Rev. G. Richter will find it difficult to prove that the Kurubas of Mysore are only called so as shepherds, and that no connection exists between these Kurubas and the Kurumbas. Mr. Lewis Rice calls the wild tribes as well as the shepherds Kurubas, but seems to overlook the fact that both terms are identical, and refer to only the ethnological distinction.”
The above extracts will suffice for the purpose of showing that the distinction between the jungle Kurumbas and the more civilised Kurubas, and their relationship towards each other, call for a ‘permanent settlement.’ And I may briefly place on record the results of anthropometric observations on the jungle Kurumbas of the Nīlgiris, and the domesticated Kurubas of Mysore and the Bellary district, whose stature and nasal index (two factors of primary importance) are compared with those of the jungle Paniyans of Malabar and Kādirs of the Ānaimalai mountains—
| Stature. | Nasal index. | ||
| Average. | Average. | Maximum. | |
| cm. | |||
| Kurubas, Bellary | 162.7 | 74.9 | 92 |
| Kurubas, Mysore | 163.9 | 73.2 | 86 |
| Kurumbas, Nilgiris | 157.5 | 88.8 | 111 |
| Paniyans | 157.4 | 95.1 | 108 |
| Kādirs | 151.7 | 89 | 115 |
A glance at the above table at once shows that there is a closer affinity between the three dark-skinned, short, platyrhine jungle tribes, than between the jungle Kurumbas and the lighter-skinned, taller, and more leptorhine Kurubas.
The domesticated Kurubas are dealt with separately, and, in the remarks which follow, I am dealing solely with the jungle Kurumbas.