Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 4 of 7

by Edgar Thurston

The Kota blacksmiths make hatches, bill-hooks, knives, and other implements for the various hill tribes, especially the Badagas, and also for European planters. Within the memory of men still living, they used to work with iron ore brought up from the low country, but now depend on scrap iron, which they purchase locally in the bazar. The most flourishing smithy in the Kotagiri village is made of bricks of local manufacture, roofed with zinc sheets, and fitted with anvil pincers, etc., of European manufacture.

As agriculturists the Kotas are said to be quite on a par with the Badagas, and they raise on the land adjacent to their villages crops of potatoes, bearded wheat (akki or rice ganji), barley (beer ganji), kīrai (Amarantus), sāmai (Panicum miliare), korali (Setaria italica), mustard, onions, etc.

At the revenue settlement, 1885, the Kotas were treated in the same way as the Badagas and other tribes of the Nīlgiris, except the Todas, and the lands in their occupation were assigned to them at rates varying from ten to twenty annas per acre. The bhurty or shifting system of cultivation, under which the Kotas held their lands, was formally, but nominally, abolished in 1862–64; but it was practically and finally done away with at the revenue settlement of the Nīlgiri plateau. The Kota lands are now held on puttas under the ordinary ryotwari tenure.

In former days, opium of good quality was cultivated by the Badagas, from whom the Kotas got poppy-heads, which their herbalists used for medicinal purposes. At the present time, the Kotas purchase opium in the bazar, and use it as an intoxicant.

The Kota women have none of the fearlessness and friendliness of the Todas, and, on the approach of a European to their domain, bolt out of sight, like frighted rabbits in a warren, and hide within the inmost recesses of their huts. As a rule they are clad in filthily dirty clothes, all tattered and torn, and frequently not reaching as low as the knees. In addition to domestic duties, the women have to do work in the fields, fetch water and collect firewood, with loads of which, supported on the head by a pad of bracken fern (Pteris aquilina) leaves, and bill-hook slung on the shoulder, old and young women, girls and boys, may continually be seen returning to the Kotagiri village. The women also make baskets, and rude earthen pots from a black clay found in swamps on a potter’s wheel. This consists of a disc made of dry mud, with an iron spike, by means of which it is made to revolve in a socket in a stone fixed in the space in front of the houses, which also acts as a threshing-floor. The earthenware vessels used by the Todas for cooking purposes, and those used in dairy work, except those of the inner room of the ti (sacred dairy), are said by Dr. Rivers to be made by the Kotas.

The Kota priesthood is represented by two classes, Munthakannān or Pūjāri, and Terkāran or Dēvādi, of whom the former rank higher than the latter. There may be more than two Terkārans in a village, but the Munthakannāns never exceed this number, and they should belong to different kēris. These representatives of the priesthood must not be widowers, and, if they lose their wives while holding office, their appointment lapses. They may eat the flesh of buffaloes, but not drink their milk. Cow’s flesh, but not its milk, is tabu. The Kotas may not milk cows, or, under ordinary conditions, drink the milk thereof in their own village, but are permitted to do so if it is given to them by a Pūjāri, or in a village other than their own. The duties of the Munthakannān include milking the cows of the village, service to the god, and participation in the seed-sowing and reaping ceremonial. They must use fire obtained by friction, and should keep a fire constantly burning in a broken pot. In like manner, the Terkārans must not use matches, but take fire from the house of the Munthakannān. The members of the priesthood are not allowed to work for others, but may do so on their own account in the fields or at the forge. They should avoid pollution, and may not attend a Toda or Badaga funeral, or approach the seclusion hut set apart for Kota women. When a vacancy in the office of Munthakannān occurs, the Kotas of the village gather together, and seek the guidance of the Terkāran, who becomes inspired by the deity, and announces the name of the successor. The selected individual has to be fed at the expense of the community for three months, during which time he may not speak to his wife or other woman direct, but only through the medium of a boy, who acts as his assistant. Further, during this period of probation, he may not sleep on a mat or use a blanket, but must lie on the ground or on a plank, and use a dhupati (coarse cloth) as a covering. At the time of the annual temple festival, neither the Munthakannāns nor the Terkārans may live or hold communion with their wives for fear of pollution, and they have to cook their food themselves.

The seed-sowing ceremony is celebrated in the month of Kumbam (February-March) on a Tuesday or Friday. For eight days the Pūjāri abstains from meat and lives on vegetable dietary, and may not communicate directly with his wife, a boy acting as spokesman. On the Sunday before the ceremony, a number of cows are penned in a kraal, and milked by the Pūjāri. The milk is preserved, and, if the omens are favourable, is said not to turn sour. If it does, this is attributed to the Pūjāri being under pollution from some cause or other. On the day of the ceremony, the Pūjāri bathes in a stream, and proceeds, accompanied by a boy, to a field or the forest. After worshipping the gods, he makes a small seed-pan in the ground, and sows therein a small quantity of rāgi (Elusine Coracana). Meanwhile, the Kotas of the village go to the temple, and clean it. Thither the Pūjāri and the boy proceed, and the deity is worshipped with offerings of cocoanuts, betel, flowers, etc. Sometimes the Terkāran becomes inspired, and gives expression to oracular utterances. From the temple all go to the house of the Pūjāri, who gives them a small quantity of milk and food. Three months later, on an auspicious day, the reaping of the crop is commenced with a very similar form of ceremonial.

During the seed-sowing festival, Mr. Harkness, writing in 1832,[8] informs us, “offerings are made in the temples, and, on the day of the full moon, after the whole have partaken of a feast, the blacksmith and the gold and silversmith, constructing separately a forge and furnace within the temple, each makes something in the way of has avocation, the blacksmith a chopper or axe, the silversmith a ring or other kind of ornament.”

“Some rude image,” Dr. Shortt writes,[9] “of wood or stone, a rock or tree in a secluded locality, frequently forms the Kota’s object of worship, to which sacrificial offerings are made; but the recognised place of worship in each village consists of a large square of ground, walled round with loose stones, three feet high, and containing in its centre two[10] pent-shaped sheds of thatch, open before and behind, and on the posts (of stone) that support them some rude circles and other figures are drawn. No image of any sort is visible here.” These sheds, which at Kotagiri are a very short distance apart, are dedicated to Siva and his consort Parvati under the names of Kāmatarāya and Kālikai. Though no representation thereof is exhibited in the temples at ordinary times, their spirits are believed to pervade the buildings, and at the annual ceremony they are represented by two thin plates of silver, which are attached to the upright posts of the temples. The stones surrounding the temples at Kotagiri are scratched with various quaint devices, and lines for the games of kotē and hulikotē. The Kotas go, I was told, to the temple once a month, at full moon, and worship the gods. Their belief is that Kāmatarāya created the Kotas, Todas, and Kurumbas, but not the Irulas. “Tradition says of Kāmatarāya that, perspiring profusely, he wiped from his forehead three drops of perspiration, and out of them formed the three most ancient of the hill tribes—the Todas, Kurumbas, and Kotas. The Todas were told to live principally upon milk, the Kurumbas were permitted to eat the flesh of buffalo calves, and the Kotas were allowed perfect liberty in the choice of food, being informed that they might eat carrion if they could get nothing better.” According to another version of this legend given by Dr. Rivers, Kāmatarāya “gave to each people a pot. In the Toda pot was calf-flesh, and so the Todas eat the flesh of calves at the erkumptthpimi ceremony; the Kurumba pot contained the flesh of a male buffalo, so this is eaten by the Kurumbas. The pot of the Kotas contained the flesh of a cow-buffalo, which may, therefore, be eaten by this people.”