In a note on the Mudavāndis, Mr. F. R. Hemingway writes that it is stated to be the custom that children born blind or lame in the Konga Vellāla caste are handed over by their parents to become Mudavāndis. If the parents hesitate to comply with the custom, the Mudavāndis tie a red cloth round the head of the child, and the parents can then no longer withhold their consent. They have to give the boy a bullock to ride on if he is lame, or a stick if he is blind.
A Revenue Officer writes (1902) that, at the village of Āndipalayam in the Salem district, there is a class of people called Modavāndi, whose profession is the adoption of the infirm members of the Konga Vellālas. Āndis are professional beggars. They go about among the Konga Vellālas, and all the blind and maimed children are pounced upon by them, and carried to their village. While parting with their children, the parents, always at the request of the children, give a few, sometimes rising to a hundred, rupees. The infirm never loses his status. He becomes the adopted child of the Āndi, and inherits half of his property invariably. They are married among the Āndis, and are well looked after. In return for their services, the Āndis receive four annas a head from the Konga Vellāla community annually, and the income from this source alone amounts to Rs. 6,400. A forty-first part share is given to the temple of Arthanariswara at Trichengōdu. None of the Vellālas can refuse the annual subscription, on pain of being placed under the ban of social excommunication, and the Āndi will not leave the Vellāla’s house until the infirm child is handed over to him. One Tahsildar (revenue officer) asked himself why the Āndi’s income should not be liable to income-tax, and the Āndis were collectively assessed. Of course, it was cancelled on appeal.
Mudi (knot).—An exogamous sept of Māla.
Mudiya.—The name, derived from mudi, a preparation of fried rice, of a sub-division of Chuditiya.
Muduvar.—The Muduvars or Mudugars are a tribe of hill cultivators in Coimbatore, Madura, Malabar, and Travancore. For the following note on those who inhabit the Cardamom hills, I am indebted to Mr. Aylmer Ff. Martin.
The name of the tribe is usually spelt Muduvar in English, and in Tamil pronounced Muthuvar, or Muthuvānāl. Outsiders sometimes call the tribe Thagappanmargal (a title sometimes used by low-caste people in addressing their masters). The Muduvars have a dialect of their own, closely allied to Tamil, with a few Malayālam words. Their names for males are mostly those of Hindu gods and heroes, but Kanjan (dry or stingy), Karupu Kunji (black chick), Kunjita (chicken) and Kar Mēgam (black cloud) are distinctive and common. For females, the names of goddesses and heroines, Karapayi (black), Koopi (sweepings), and Paychi (she-devil) are common. Boy twins are invariably Lutchuman and Rāman, girl twins Lutchmi and Rāmayi. Boy and girl twins are named Lutchman and Rāmayi, or Lutchmi and Rāman.
The Muduvars do not believe themselves to be indigenous to the hills; the legend, handed down from father to son, is that they originally lived in Madura. Owing to troubles, or a war in which the Pāndyan Rāja of the times was engaged, they fled to the hills. When at Bōdināyakanūr, the pregnant women (or, as some say, a pregnant woman) were left behind, and eventually went with the offspring to the Nīlgiris, while the bulk of the tribe came to the High Range of North Travancore. There is supposed to be enmity between these rather vague Nīlgiri people and the Muduvars. The Nīlgiri people are said occasionally to visit Bōdināyakanūr, but, if by chance they are met by Muduvars, there is no speech between them, though each is supposed instinctively or intuitively to recognise the presence of the other. Those that came to the High Range carried their children up the ghāts on their backs, and it was thereupon decided to name the tribe Muduvar, or back people. According to another tradition, when they left Madura, they carried with them on their back the image of the goddess Mīnākshi, and brought it to Nēriyamangalam. It is stated by Mr. P. E. Conner[60] that the Muduvars “rank high in point of precedency among the hill tribes. They were originally Vellalās, tradition representing them as having accompanied some of the Madura princes to the Travancore hills.” The approximate time of the exodus from Madura cannot even be guessed by any of the tribe, but it was possibly at the time when the Pāndyan Rājas entered the south, or more probably when the Telugu Naickers took possession of Bōdināyakanūr in the fourteenth century. It has also been suggested that the Muduvars were driven to the hills by the Muhammadan invaders in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Judging from the two distinct types of countenance, their language, and their curious mixture of customs, I hazard the conjecture that, when they arrived on the hills, they found a small tribe in possession, with whom they subsequently intermarried, this tribe having affinities with the west coast, while the new arrivals were connected with the east.
The tribe is settled on the northern and western portion of the Cardamom Hills, and the High Range of Travancore, known as the Kanan Dēvan hills, and there is, I believe, one village on the Ānaimalai hills. They wander to some extent, less so now than formerly, owing to the establishment of the planting community in their midst. The head-quarters at present may be said to be on the western slopes of the High Range. The present Mēl Vāken or headman lives in a village on the western slope of the High Range at about 2,000 feet elevation, but villages occur up to 6,000 feet above sea level, the majority of villages being about 4,000 feet above the sea. The wandering takes place between the reaping of the final crop on one piece of land, and the sowing of the next. About November sees the breaking up of the old village, and February the establishment of the new. On the plateau of the High Range their dwellings are small rectangular, rather flat-roofed huts, made of jungle sticks or grass (both walls and root), and are very neat in appearance. On the western slopes, although the materials lend themselves to even neater building, their houses are usually of a rougher type. The materials used are the stems and leaves of the large-leaved īta (bamboo: Ochlandra travancorica) owing to the absence of grass-land country. The back of the house has no wall, the roof sloping on to the hillside behind, and the other walls are generally made of a rough sort of matting made by plaiting split īta stems.
Outsiders are theoretically not received into the caste, but a weaver caste boy and girl who were starving (in the famine of 1877, as far as I can make out), and deserted on the hills, were adopted, and, when they grew up, were allowed the full privileges of the caste. Since then, a ‘Thotiya Naicker’ child was similarly adopted, and is now a full-blown Muduvar with a Muduvar wife. On similar occasions, adoptions from similar or higher castes might take place, but the adoption of Pariahs or low-caste people would be quite impossible. In a lecture delivered some years ago by Mr. O. H. Bensley, it was stated that the Muduvars permit the entry of members of the Vellāla caste into their community, but insist upon a considerable period of probation before finally admitting the would-be Muduvar into their ranks.
If any dispute arises in the community, it is referred to the men of the village, who form an informal panchāyat (council), with the eldest or most influential man at its head. References are sometimes, but only seldom, made to the Mūppen, a sort of sub-headman of the tribe, except, perhaps, in the particular village in which he resides. The office of both Mūppen and Mēl Vāken is hereditary, and follows the marumakkatāyam custom, i.e., descent to the eldest son of the eldest sister. The orders of the panchāyat, or of the headman, are not enforceable by any specified means. A sort of sending a delinquent to Coventry exists, but falls through when the matter has blown over. Adjudications only occur at the request of the parties concerned, or in the case of cohabitation between the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, when, on it becoming known, the guilty pair are banished to the jungle, but seem nevertheless to be able to visit the village at will. When disputes between parties are settled against any one, he may be fined, generally in kind—a calf, a cow, a bull, or grain. There is no trial by ordeal. Oaths by the accuser, the accused, and partisans of both, are freely taken. The form of oath is to call upon God that the person swearing, or his child, may die within so many days if the oath is untrue, at the same time stepping over the Rāma kodu, which consists of lines drawn on the ground, one line for each day. It may consist of any number of lines, but three, five, or seven are usual. Increasing the number of lines indefinitely would be considered to be trifling with the subject.