Madhavē (marriage).—An exogamous sept of Badagas of the Nīlgiri hills.
Madhurāpuria.—A name frequently given by members of the Bhatta sub-division of Gaudo.
Madhya.—Madhya or Madhaya is a sub-division of Bottada and Sondi.
Mādiga.—The Mādigas are the great leather-working caste of the Telugu country, and correspond to the Chakkiliyans of the Tamil area. They were first studied by me at Hospet in the Bellary district, and at once formed a strong opposition party, in the belief that I was going to select and carry off the strong men, lest they should become kings, and upset the British Rāj. So frightened were they, that they went in a body to live in the Muhammadan quarter of the town.
At the Hospet weekly market I witnessed a mendicant youth lying naked in a thorny bed of bābūl (Acacia arabica) stems. A loathsome spectacle was afforded by a shrivelled old woman with mouth distended by a mass of mud the size of a cricket-ball, both eyes bunged up with mud, and beating her bare breasts with her hands. The market was infested by religious mendicants, some from Benares and Rāmēsvaram, others from across the Hyderabad frontier, who cadged persistently for tobacco leaves, an onion or brinjal (Solanum Melongena), a few chillies, a handful of grain, or a pinch of salt, and helped to deplete the slender stock of the market-sellers. One holy man from Sholapūr was profusely decorated with beads, ashes, brass snakes, and deities. Holding out for four pies worth of betel leaves, while the stall-keeper only offered one pie worth, he, after making a circle in the ground with his staff round his sandals thickly studded with blunt nails, stood thereon, and abused the vendor in language which was not nice. A Native Magistrate thereon summoned a constable, who, hastily donning his official belt, took the holy man in custody for an offence under the Act.
A conspicuous feature of Hospet are the block-wheel carts with wooden wheels, solid or made of several pieces, with no spokes. Dragged by sturdy buffaloes, they are excellent for carrying timber or other loads on rough roads or hill-tracks, where ordinary carts cannot travel. During the breezy and showery season of the south-west monsoon, kite-flying is the joy of the Hospet youths, the kites being decorated with devices of scorpions and Hindu gods, among which a representation of Hanumān, one of the genii loci, soared highest every evening.
It is fairly easy to distinguish a Mādiga from a Bēdar, but difficult to put the distinction in words. The Mādigas have more prominent cheek-bones, a more vinous eye, and are more unkempt. The Bēdar, it is said, gets drunk on arrack (alcohol obtained by distillation), whereas the Mādiga contents himself with the cheaper toddy (fermented palm juice). The Bēdars resort freely to the Mādiga quarters (Mādiga kēri), situated on the outskirts of the town, and fenced in by milk-hedge (Euphorbia Tirucalli) bushes. My Brāhman assistant, hunting in the Mādiga quarters for subjects for measurement, unfortunately asked some Bēdars if they were Mādigas. To which, resenting the mistake, one of them replied “We call you the Mādiga,” and the Brāhman stood crushed.
The Hospet Mādigas had their hair cropped short, moustache, and trimmed beard. They wore the customary threads or charm cylinders to ward off devils, and steel tweezers for removing the thorns of the bābūl, which is largely used as a fence for the fields of chōlam and sugar. One man had suspended round his neck, as a hereditary talisman, a big silver Venkatarāmana bottu with the nāmam in the centre on an altar, and the chank and chakram stamped on it.
As bearing on the social status of the Mālas and Mādigas, which is a subject of dispute between the two classes, it may be noted that all the billets in cotton factories which require any skill, such as engine-drivers, valve-men, moulders, turners, etc., are held by Mālas. The Mādigas are generally only three-anna wage men, and do such work as turning a winch, moving bales, and other trivial jobs. At a factory, whereat I stayed, at Adōni, there were three wells, viz.:—for Mālas, for Mādigas, and for the rest of the workers, except Brāhmans. And the well-water for the Mālas was better than that for the Mādigas. A Mādiga chindu, or sword-dance, was prohibited in 1859 and 1874. But a petition, referring to its obscene nature, and its being the cause of frequent collision between the Mālas and Mādigas, was submitted to the Collector of Kurnool in 1887, by a missionary. The dance was performed at festivals, held annually or triennially, in honour of the village goddess, and during the time of threshing corn, building a new house, or the opening of a newly-dug well. The dance, accompanied by a song containing grossly indecent reflections against the Mālas, was also performed, under the excitement of strong drinks, in the presence of the goddess, on the occasion of marriages. One verse ran as follows: “I shall cut with my saw the Mālas of the four houses at Nandyāl, and, having caused them to be cut up, shall remove their skins, and fix them to drums.”
“The right hand party,” it is stated,[1] “resent the use by the left of palanquins at their marriages, and so the Mālas are very jealous of the Chucklers (Mādigas) carrying the bride and bridegroom through the streets, using tinkling ornaments, etc. Riots sometimes occur when a strong feeling of opposition is raised, to resent what they consider innovations.”