“The Kurumbas,” Harkness writes, “have a knowledge of herbs and medicinal roots, and the Burghers (Badagas) say that they limit their knowledge thereof to those which are noxious only, and believe that, with the assistance of their magic, they are able to convey them into the stomachs of those to whom they have any dislike. The violent antipathy existing between the Burghers and the Kurumbas, and the dread and horror which the former entertain of the preternatural powers of the latter, are, perhaps, not easily accounted for; but neither sickness, death, nor misfortune of any kind, ever visit the former, without the latter having the credit of producing it. A few years before, a Burgher had been hanged by the sentence of the provincial court for the murder of a Kurumba. The act of the former was not without what was considered great provocation. Disease had attacked the inhabitants of the hamlet, a murrain their cattle. The former had carried off a great part of the family of the murderer, and he himself had but narrowly escaped its effects. No one in the neighbourhood doubted that the Kurumba in question had, by his necromancy, caused all this misfortune, and, after several fruitless attempts, a party of them succeeded in surrounding him in open day, and effecting their purpose.” In 1835 no less than forty-eight Kurumbas were murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1900 a whole family of Kurumbas was murdered, of which the head, who had a reputation as a medicine-man, was believed to have brought disease and death into a Badaga village. The sympathies of the whole country-side were so strongly with the murderers that detection was made very difficult, and the persons charged were acquitted.[64] In this case several Todas were implicated. “It is,” Mr. Grigg writes, “a curious fact that neither Kota, Irula, or Badaga will slay a Kurumba until a Toda has struck the first blow, but, as soon as his sanctity has been violated by a blow, they hasten to complete the murderous work, which the sacred hand of the Toda has begun.” The Badaga’s dread of the Kurumba is said to be so great that a simple threat of vengeance has proved fatal. My Toda guide—a stalwart representative of his tribe—expressed fear of walking from Ootacamund to Kotagiri, a distance of eighteen miles along a highroad, lest he should come to grief at the hands of Kurumbas; but this was really a frivolous excuse to get out of accompanying me to a distance from his domestic hearth. In like manner, Dr. Rivers records that, when he went to Kotagiri, a Toda who was to accompany him made a stipulation that he should be provided with a companion, as the Kurambas were very numerous in that part. In connection with the Toda legend of Ön, who created the buffaloes and the Todas, Dr. Rivers writes that “when Ön saw that his son was in Amnodr (the world of the dead), he did not like to leave him there alone, and decided to go away to the same place. So he called together all the people, and the buffaloes and the trees, to come and bid him farewell. All the people came except a man of Kwodrdoni named Arsankutan. He and his family did not come. All the buffaloes came except the Arsaiir, the buffaloes of the Kwodroni ti (sacred dairy). Some trees also failed to come. Ön blessed all the people, buffaloes and trees present, but said that, because Arsankutan had not come, he and his people should die by sorcery at the hands of the Kurumbas, and that, because the Arsaiir had not come, they should be killed by tigers, and that the trees which had not come should bear bitter fruit. Since that time the Todas have feared the Kurumbas, and buffaloes have been killed by tigers.”
On the Nīlgiri hills, honey-combs are collected by Jēn Kurumbas and Shōlagas. The supply of honey varies according to the nature of the season, and is said to be especially plentiful and of good quality when Strobilanthes flowers.[65] The Kurumbas are said to have incredibly keen eye-sight, gained from constantly watching the bee to his hive. When they find a hive not quite ready to take, they place a couple of sticks in a certain position. This sign will prevent any other Kurumba from taking the honey, and no Badaga or other hillman would meddle with it on any account, for fear of being killed by sorcery.
Fortified by a liberal allowance of alcohol and tobacco, the Kurumbas, armed with bamboo torches, will follow up at night the tracks of a wounded ‘bison’ (Bos gaurus), and bring back the head and meat to camp. A European sportsman recounts that he has often seen his Kurumba shikāri (tracker) stop, and, with the one word “honey,” point to the top of an adjacent tree. “How do you know?” he asked, “Oh! I saw a bee” was the answer given with the greatest nonchalance. On one occasion he found himself close to a swarm of bees. The Kurumba, seeing him hesitate, thrust his stick clean through the swarm, and, with the bare remark “No honey,” marched on. The District Forest Officer, when out shooting, had an easy shot at a stag, and missed it. “There,” said the Kurumba, pointing to a distant tree, “is your bullet.” His trained sense of hearing no doubt enabled him to locate the sound of the bullet striking the tree, and his eyes, following the sound, instantly detected the slight blaze made by the bullet on the bark. The visual acuity of a number of tribes and castes inhabiting the mountains, jungles, and plains, has been determined by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers and myself, by means of the Cohn letter E method. And, though the jungle man, who has to search for his food and mark the tracks or traces of wild beasts, undoubtedly possesses a specially trained keenness of vision for the exigencies of his primitive life, our figures show that, as regards ordinary visual acuity, he has no advantage over the more highly civilised classes.
“The Kurumbas of the Mysore forests,” Mr. Theobald writes, “make fire by friction. They follow the same method as the Todas, as described by Mr. Thurston, but never use the powdered charcoal in the cavity of the horizontal piece of wood which is held down by their feet, or by a companion. The fine brown powder, formed during the rotation of the longer vertical piece, gives sufficient tinder, which soon ignites, and is then placed on a small piece of cotton rag, rolled loosely, and gently blown until it is ignited. The vertical stick is held between the palms, and has a reciprocal motion, by the palms being moved in opposite directions, at the same time using a strong downward pressure, which naturally brings the palms to the bottom, when they are at once raised to their original position, and the operation continued till the naturally formed tinder ignites.”
In his report on Forest Administration in Coorg, 1902–1903, Mr. C. D’A. McCarthy writes as follows concerning the Kurumbas, who work for the Forest department. “We experienced in connection with the Kurumbas one of those apparent aberrations of sense and intellect, the occurrence of which amongst this peculiar race was foreshadowed in the last report. The Chief Commissioner is aware that, in the interests of the Kurubas themselves, we substitute for a single cash payment distributions to the same value of food-grains, clothes and cash, in equal proportions of each. Now, seventy years ago, before the annexation of Coorg, the Kurubas and similar castes were prædial slaves of the dominant Coorgs, receiving no other remuneration for service than food and clothing. In fact, this institution, nothing less than real slavery, was not entirely broken up until the great demand for local labour created by the opening up of the country for coffee cultivation so late as 1860–1870, so that the existing generation are still cognisant of the old state of affairs. Last year, during the distribution of rewards for the successful protection of the reserves that season from fire, it seems that the idea was put into the heads of these people that our system of remuneration, which includes the distribution of food and clothing, was an attempt to create again at their expense a system of, as it were, forest slavery; with the result that for a time nothing would induce many of them to accept any form of remuneration for the work already performed, much less to undertake the same duties for the approaching season. It was some time, and after no little trouble, that the wherefore of this strange conduct was discovered, and the suspicions aroused put at rest.” In his report, 1904–1905, Mr. McCarthy states that “the local system of fire protection, consisting of the utilisation of the Kuruba jungle population for the clearing of fire lines and patrolling, and the payment of rewards according to results, may now be said to be completely established in Coorg. The Kurubas appear to have gained complete confidence in the working of the system, and, provided the superior officers personally see to the payment of the rewards, are evidently quite satisfied that the deductions for failures are just and fair.”
The Kurumbas are said to have been very useful in the mining operations during the short life of the Wynād gold-mines. A few years ago, I received the skulls of two Kurumbas, who went after a porcupine into a deserted tunnel on the Glenrock Gold-mining Company’s land in the Wynād. The roof fell in on them, and they were buried alive.
In a note on the ‘Ethnogénie des Dravidiens’,[66] Mr. Louis Lapicque writes as follows. “Les populations caractéristiques du Wainaad sont les Panyer, les négroides les plus accusés et les plus homogenes que j’ai vus, et probablement qui existent dans toute l’Inde. D’autre part, les tribus vivant de leur côté sur leurs propres cultures, fortement négroides encore, mais plus mélangées. Tels sont les Naiker et les Kouroumbas.”
| —— | Indice nasal. | Indice céphalique. | Taille. |
| 54 Panyer | 84 | 74 | 154 |
| 28 Kouroumbas | 81 | 75 | 157 |
| 12 Naiker | 80 | 76.9 | 157 |
Concerning Nāyakas or Naikers and Kurumbas, Mr. F. W. F. Fletcher writes to me as follows from Nellakotta, Nīlgiris. “It may be that in some parts of Wynaad there are people known indifferently as Kurumbas and Shola Nāyakas; but I have no hesitation in saying that the Nāyakas in my employ are entirely distinct from the Kurumbas. The two classes do not intermarry; they do not live together; they will not eat together. Even their prejudices with regard to food are different, for a Kurumba will eat bison flesh, and a Nāyaka will not. The latter stoutly maintains that he is entirely distinct from, and far superior to, the Kurumba, and would be grievously offended if he were classed as a Kurumba. The religious ceremonies of the two tribes are also different. The Nāyakas have separate temples, and worship separate gods. The chief Kurumba temple in this part of the country is close to Pandalur, and here, especially at the Bishu feast, the Kurumbas gather in numbers. My Nāyakas do not recognise this temple, but have their place of worship in the heart of the jungle, where they make their pūja (worship) under the direction of their own priest. The Nāyakas will not attend the funeral of a Kurumba; nor will they invite Kurumbas to the funeral of one of their own tribe. There is a marked variation in their modes of life. The Kurumba of this part lives in comparatively open country, in the belt of deciduous forest lying between the ghāts proper and the foot of the Nīlgiri plateau. Here he has been brought into contact with European Planters, and is, comparatively speaking, civilised. The Nāyaka has his habitat in the dense jungle of the ghāts, and is essentially a forest nomad, living on honey, jungle fruits, and the tuberous roots of certain jungle creepers. By constant association with myself, my Nāyaka men have lost the fear of the white man, which they entertained when I first came into the district; but even now, if I visit the village of a colony who reside in the primæval forest, the women and children will hide themselves in the jungle at sight of me. The superstitions of the two tribes are different. Some Nāyakas are credited with the power of changing themselves at will into a tiger, and of wreaking vengeance on their enemies in that guise. And the Kurumba holds the Nāyaka in as much awe as other castes hold the Kurumba. Lower down, on the flat below the ghāts I am opening a rubber estate, and here I have another Nāyaka colony, who differ in many respects from their congeners above, although the two colonies are within five miles as the crow flies. The low-country Nāyaka does his hair in a knot on one side of his head, Malayālam fashion, and his speech is a patois of Malayālam. The Nāyaka on the hills above has a mop of curly hair, and speaks a dialect of his own quite distinct from the Kurumba language, though both are derived from Kanarese. But that the low-country people are merely a sept of the Nāyaka tribe is evident from the fact that intermarriage is common amongst the two colonies, and that they meet at the same temple for their annual pūja. The priest of the hill colony is the pūjāri for both divisions of the Nāyakas, and the arbiter in all their disputes.”