The Kādu, or wild Kurumbas of Mysore are divided into “(a) Betta or hill Kurumbas, with sub-divisions called Ānē (elephant), Bevina (nīm tree: Melia Azadirachta), and Kolli (fire-brand)—a small and active race, capable of great fatigue, who are expert woodmen; (b) Jēnu or honey Kurumbas, said to be a darker and inferior race, who employ themselves in collecting honey and bees-wax.”[57]
For the following note on the Kādu Kurumbas I am indebted to the Mysore Census Report, 1891. “There are two clans among them, viz., Bettada and Jēnu. The former worship the forest deities Nārāli and Māstamma; eat flesh and “drink liquor, a favourite beverage being prepared from rāgi (Eleusine Coracana) flour. Some of their habits and customs are worth mentioning, as indicating their plane of civilization. They have two forms of marriage. One is similar to the elaborate ceremony among the Vakkaligas, while the other is the simple one of a formal exchange of betel leaves and areca nuts, which concludes the nuptials. The Kādu Kurubas can only eat meals prepared by members of the higher castes. During their periodical illnesses, the females live outside the limits of the Hādi (group of rude huts) for three days. And, in cases of childbirth, none but the wet nurse or other attendant enters the room of the confined woman for ten days. In cases of sickness, no medical treatment is resorted to; on the other hand, exorcisms, charms, incantations, and animal sacrifices are more generally in vogue. The male’s dress consists of either a bit of cloth to cover their nudity, or a piece of coarse cloth tied round the waist, and reaching to the knees. They wear ornaments of gold, silver, or brass. They are their own barbers, and use broken glass for razors. The females wear coarse cloth four yards long, and have their foreheads tattooed in dots of two or three horizontal lines, and wear ear-rings, glass bangles, and necklaces of black beads. Strangers are not allowed to enter their hādis or hamlets with shoes or slippers on. In case of death, children are buried, whilst adults are burned. On the occurrence of any untoward event, the whole site is abandoned, and a new hādi set up in the vicinity. The Kādu Kurubas are very active, and capable of enduring great fatigue. It is said that they are revengeful, but, if treated kindly, they will do willing service. The Jēnu Kurubas live in small detached huts in the interior of thick jungles, far away from inhabited places. Their habits are no less wild. The male dress consists of either a woollen kambli or coarse cloth, and a skull cap. The female’s sādi is white coarse cloth, their wonted ornaments being a pair of brass ear-rings, strings of black beads tied round the neck, and glass bangles on the wrist. These people do not allow to outcasts and Musalmans access to their premises, or permit shoes being brought into their houses or streets. They eat flesh, and take meals from Vakkaligas, Lingāyats, and other superior castes. They subsist on wild bamboo seed, edible roots, etc., found in the jungle, often mixed with honey. They are said not unfrequently to make a dessert out of bees in preference to milk, ghī (clarified butter), etc. They are engaged chiefly in felling timber in the forests, and other similar rude pursuits, but they never own or cultivate land for themselves, or keep live-stock of their own. They are very expert in tracking wild animals, and very skilfully elude accidental pursuits thereby. Their children, more than two years old, move about freely in the jungle. They are said to be hospitable to travellers visiting their place at any unusual hour. They are Saivites, and Jangams are their gurus. The ceremonial pollution on account of death lasts for ten days, as with the Brāhmans. Children are buried, while adults, male or female, are cremated. A curious trait of this primitive race is that the unmarried females of the village or hādi generally sleep in a hut or chāvadi set apart for them, whilst the adult bachelors and children have a separate building, both under the eye of the head tribesman. The hut for the latter is called pundugār chāvadi, meaning literally the abode of vagabonds.” The Jēnu Kurumbas are said to eat, and the Betta Kurumbas to abstain from eating the flesh of the ‘bison’ (Bos gaurus).
Kurumbas.
In a note on the Jēnu and Betta Kurumbas of Mysore, Mr. M. Venkatanarnappa writes as follows. “The Betta are better clothed and fed than the Jēn Kurumbas. Their occupation is kumri (burning and shifting) cultivation. Their women are clever at basket-making. They can be distinguished by the method of dress which their women have adopted, and the way in which the men wear their hair. A Betta woman covers her body below the shoulders by tying a long cloth round the arm-pits, leaving shoulders and arms bare, whereas a Jēn woman in good circumstances dresses up like the village females, and, if poor, ties a piece of cloth round her loins, and wears another to partially conceal the upper part of her body. Among males, a Betta Kurumba leaves his hair uncut, and gathers it from fore and aft into a knot tied on the crown of the head. A Jēn Kurumba shaves like the ryots, leaving a tuft behind, or clips or crops it, with a curly or bushy growth to protect the head from heat and cold. The Betta and Jēn Kurumbas never intermarry.” The Betta Kurumbas are, I am told, excellent elephant mahauts (drivers), and very useful at keddah (elephant-catching) operations.
Of the Kādu and Betta Kurumbas, as they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the following account is given by Buchanan.[58] “The Cad Curubaru are a rude tribe, who are exceedingly poor and wretched. In the fields near the villages, they build miserable low huts, have a few rags only for clothing, and the hair of both sexes stands out matted like a mop, and swarms with vermin. Some of them hire themselves out as labouring servants to the farmers, and receive monthly wages. Others, in crop seasons, watch the fields at night, to keep off elephants and wild hogs. In the intervals between crops, they work as daily labourers, or go into the woods, and collect the roots of wild yams (Dioscorea), part of which they eat, and part exchange with the farmers for grain. Their manner of driving away the elephant is by running against him with a burning torch made of bamboos. The animal sometimes turns, waits till the Curubaru comes close up; but these poor people, taught by experience, push boldly on, dash their torches against the elephant’s head, who never fails to take to immediate flight. Should their courage fail, and should they attempt to run away, the elephant would immediately pursue, and put them to death. The Curubaru have no means of killing so large an animal, and, on meeting with one in the day-time, are as much alarmed as any other of the inhabitants. During the Sultan’s reign they caught a few in pitfalls. [I have heard of a clever Kurumba, who caught an elephant by growing pumpkins and vegetable marrow, for which elephants have a partiality, over a pit on the outskirts of his field.—E.T.] The wild hogs are driven out of the fields by slings, but they are too fierce for the Curubaru to kill. These people frequently suffer from tigers, against which their wretched huts are a poor defence; and, when this wild beast is urged by hunger, he is regardless of their burning torches. These Curubaru have dogs, with which they catch deer, antelopes, and hares; and they have the art of taking in snares, peacocks, and other esculent birds. They believe that good men, after death, will become benevolent Dēvas, and bad men destructive Dēvas. They are of such known honesty that on all occasions they are entrusted with provisions by the farmers, who are persuaded that the Curubaru would rather starve than take one grain of what was given to them in charge. The spirits of the dead are believed to appear in dreams to their old people, and to direct them to make offerings to a female deity named Bettada Chicama, that is, the mother of the hill. Unless these offerings are made, this goddess occasions sickness. In cases of adultery, the husband flogs his wife severely, and, if he is able, beats her paramour. If he be not able, he applies to the gaudo (headman), who does it for him.” The Betta Curubaru, Buchanan continues, “live in poor huts near the villages, and the chief employment of the men is the cutting of timber, and making of baskets. With a sharp stick they also dig up spots of ground in the skirts of the forest, and sow them with rāgi (Eleusine Coracana). The men watch at night the fields of the farmers, but they are not so dexterous at this as the Cad Curubaru. In this class, the Cutigas are women that prefer another man to their husband, or widows, who do not wish to relinquish carnal enjoyment. Their children are not considered as illegitimate.”
Kurumba.
Of the casual system of clearing the jungle in vogue among the Kurumbas, I may quote the following description.[59] “In their search for food, this wild tribe naturally prefers a forest cleared of all undergrowth, in which to move about, and the ingenuity with which they attain this end, and outwit the vigilant forest subordinates, is worthy of a better object. I have heard of a Kurumba walking miles from his hādi or hamlet, with a ball of dry smouldering elephant dung concealed in his waist-cloth. This he carried to the heart of the forest reserve, and, selecting a suitable spot, he placed the smouldering dung, with a plentiful supply of dry inflammable grass over it, in such a position as to allow the wind to play upon it, and fan it into a flame with the pleasing certainty that the smoke from the fire would not be detected by the watchers on the distant fire-lines until the forest was well alight, the flames beyond all control, and the Kurumba himself safe at home in his hādi, awaiting the arrival of the forest subordinate to summon the settlement to assist in the hopeless task of extinguishing the fire.”
