Kurumba village.
Of the Kurumbas who are found in the Wynād, Calicut, and Ernād tāluks of Malabar, the following account is given in the Gazetteer of that district. “They are sub-divided into Mullu (bamboo) Kurumbans, Jēn or Tēn (honey) Kurumbans, also called Kādu or Shōla Nāyakkans (or Jēnu Koyyo Shōla Nāyakas, i.e., honey-cutting lords of the woods), and Ūrali or Bēt Kurumbans; of which the first-named class, who consider themselves superior to the others, are cultivators and hunters; the second wood-cutters and collectors of honey; and the third make baskets and implements of agriculture. The Mullu and Tēn Kurumbans have headmen with titles of Mūppan and Mudali respectively conferred by their janmis (landlords). The Kurumbans, like many of the other hill-tribes, use bows and arrows, with which they are expert. The caste deity of the Tēn Kurumbans is called Masti. It is perhaps worth remarking that the Ūrali Kurumbans of the Wynaad differ from the other two classes in having no headmen, observing a shorter period of pollution after a birth than any other Malabar tribe and none at all after a death, and in not worshipping any of the Malabar animistic deities.”
The chief sub-divisions of the Kurumbas on the Nīlgiris, and in the Wynād, are said, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, to be “Mullu (thorn), Betta or Vetta (hill), Ūrāli (Ūr, a village), Tēn (honey), and Tac’chanādan Mūppan (carpenter headman). Of these, the first and last speak Malayālam, and wear a lock in front of their head in the Malabar fashion. The rest speak Canarese. Ūrāli Kurumbas work in metals.”
The villages of the Kurumbas on the Nīlgiri hills are, Mr. Grigg writes,[60] called mottas. They consist generally of only four or five huts, made of mud and wattle, with thatched roofs. The front of the house is sometimes whitewashed, and ornamented with rude drawings of men and animals in red earth or charcoal. They store their grain in large oval baskets, and for bottles they use gourds. They clear a patch round about the village, and sow the ground with rāgi (Eleusine Coracana), tenne (Setaria italica), or kiri (Amarantus). They dig up roots (called gāsū) for food, and collect the jungle produce, honey, resin, gall-nuts, etc., which they barter with low-country traders, and they are clever in catching game in nets, and dispose of the flesh in a surprisingly short time. Kurumbas occasionally take work on coffee plantations, and some earn a livelihood by officiating as priests to the Badagas. They are also employed as musicians at wedding feasts and funerals of the other tribes, where they play on clarionets, drums, and tambourines, as well as the būguri. They make baskets of rattan and milk vessels out of a joint of bamboo, as well as nets of a thread called oilhatti. Their women confine themselves to the limited work of their households, fetching water, cooking, etc. The following extract embraces all that can be said of the religion of the Kurumbas. “Some profess to worship Siva, and occasionally women mark their foreheads with the Siva spot. Others, living near Barliar, worship Kuribattraya (lord of many sheep) and the wife of Siva under the name of Musni. They worship also a rough stone under the name of Hiriadēva, setting it up either in a cave, or in a circle of stones like the so-called Kurumba kōvil of the Badagas, which the latter would seem to have borrowed from the Kurumbas. To this they make pūja, and offer cooked rice at the sowing time. They also profess to sacrifice to Hiriadēva a goat, which they kill at their own houses, after sprinkling water, and eat, giving a portion of flesh to the pūjāri (priest). Others say that they have no pūjāri: among such a scattered tribe customs probably vary in each motta”—(Breeks). It is recorded by Dr. Rivers, in connection with the Toda legendary stories of Kwoten, that “one day Kwoten went with Erten of Keadr, who was spoken of as his servant to Poni, in the direction of Polkat (Calicut). At Poni there is a stream called Palpa, the commencement of which may be seen on the Kundahs. Kwoten and Erten went to drink water out of the stream at a place where a goddess (teu) named Terkosh had been bathing.... Finally, they came to Terkosh, who said to Kwoten, “Do not come near me, I am a teu.” Kwoten paid no heed to this, but said “You are a beautiful woman,” and went and lay with her. Then Terkosh went away to her hill at Poni, where she is now, and to this day the Kurumbas go there once a year and offer plantains to her, and light lamps in her honour.”
It is further recorded by Dr. Rivers that “two ceremonial objects are obtained by the Todas from the Kurumbas. One is the tall pole called tadrsi or tadri, which is used in the dance at the second funeral ceremonies, and afterwards burnt. Poles of the proper length are said to grow only on the Malabar side of the Nīlgiris, and are probably most easily obtained from the Kurumbas. The other is the teiks, or funeral post at which the buffalo is killed.” Besides supplying the Badagas with the elephant-pole required at their funerals, the Kurumbas have to sow the first handful of grain for the Badagas every season. The ceremony is thus described by Harkness.[61] “A family of the Burghers (Badagas) had assembled, which was about to commence ploughing. With them were two or three Kurumbas, one of whom had set up a stone in the centre of the spot on which we were standing, and, decorating it with wild flowers, prostrated himself to it, offered incense, and sacrificed a goat, which had been brought there by the Burghers. He then took the guidance of the plough, and, having ploughed some ten or twelve paces, gave it over, possessed himself of the head of the sacrificed animal, and left the Burghers to prosecute their labours.... The Kurumba, sowing the first handful, leaves the Burgher to go on with the remainder, and, reaping the first sheaf, delivers it with the sickle to him, to accomplish the remainder of the task. At harvest time, or when the whole of the grain has been gathered in, the Kurumba receives his dues, or proportion of the produce.” The relations of the Kurumbas with the Badagas at the present day, and the share which the former take in the ceremonies of the latter, are dealt with in the account of the Badagas.
Kurumba cave.
I am informed that, among the Kurumbas of the Nīlgiris, it is the custom for several brothers to take one wife in common (adelphogamy), and that they do not object to their women being open to others also. There is said to be no marriage rite. A man and woman will mate together, and live as husband and wife. And, if it happens that, in a family, there has been a succession of such wives for one or two generations, it becomes an event, and is celebrated as such. The pair sit together, and pour water over each other from pots. They then put on new cloths, and a feast is partaken of. Among the Shōla Nāyakkars, a feature of the marriage ceremony is said to be for the bride to roll a cheroot of tobacco leaves, which both parties must smoke in turn.
Writing concerning the Irulas and Kurumbas, Mr. Walhouse says[62] that “after every death among them, they bring a long water-worn stone (devva kotta kallu), and put it into one of the old cromlechs sprinkled over the Nīlgiri plateau. Some of the larger of these have been found piled up to the cap-stone with such pebbles, which must have been the work of generations. Occasionally, too, the tribes mentioned make small cromlechs for burial purposes, and place the long water-worn pebbles in them. Mr. Breeks reports that the Kurumbas in the neighbourhood of the Rangasvāmi peak and Barliar burn their dead, and place a bone and a small round stone in the sāvu-mane (death-house)—an old cromlech.” The conjecture is hazarded by Fergusson[63] that the Kurumbas are the remnant of a great and widely spread race, who may have erected dolmens. As bearing on the connection between Kurumbas and Kurubas, it is worthy of note that the latter, in some places, erect dolmens as a resting-place for the dead. (See Kuruba.)
It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris, that the Kurumbas “trade largely on the extraordinary dread of their supposed magical powers which possesses the Todas and the Badagas—the latter especially. Stories are told of how they can summon wild elephants at will, and reduce rocks to powder merely by scattering mystic herbs upon them.”