Nāttu (sons of the soil).—Recorded as a sub-division of Kallan, and of the Malayans of Cochin.
Nattukattāda Nāyanmar.—A class of mendicants attached to the Kaikōlans (q.v.).
Nāttukōttai Chetti.—“Of all the Chettis,” Mr. Francis writes,[35] “perhaps the most distinctive and interesting are the Nāttukōttai Chettis, who are wealthy money-lenders with head-quarters in the Tiruppattūr and Dēvakōttai divisions of the Sivaganga and Rāmnād zamindaris in the Madura district. They are the most go-a-head of all the trading castes in the south, travelling freely to Burma, the Straits Settlements and Ceylon (also Saigon, Mauritius, and South Africa), and having in some cases correspondents in London and on the Continent. As long as their father is alive, the members of a Nāttukōttai Chetti family usually all live together. The caste is noted in the Madura district for the huge houses, to which this custom has given rise. Married sons have a certain number of rooms set aside for them, and are granted a carefully calculated yearly budget allotment of rice and other necessaries. On the father’s death, contrary to all ordinary Hindu usage, the eldest son retains the house, and the youngest his mother’s jewels and bed, while the rest of the property is equally divided among all the sons. When a male child is born, a certain sum is usually set aside, and in due time the accumulated interest upon it is spent on the boy’s education. As soon as he has picked up business ways sufficiently, he begins life as the agent of some other members of the caste, being perhaps entrusted with a lakh of rupees, often on no better security than an unstamped acknowledgment scratched on a palmyra leaf, and sent off to Burma or Singapore to trade with it, and invest it. A percentage on the profits of this undertaking, and savings from his own salary, form a nucleus which he in turn invests on his own account. His wife will often help pay the house-keeping bills by making baskets and spinning thread, for the women are as thrifty as the men. As a caste they are open-handed and devout. In many houses, one pie in every rupee of profit is regularly set aside for charitable and religious expenditure, and a whip round for a caste-fellow in difficulties is readily responded to. By religion they are fervent Saivites, and many of the men proclaim the fact by wearing a rudrāksham (Eleocarpus Ganitrus) fruit, usually set in gold, round their necks. Of late years they have spent very large sums upon several of the famous Saivite shrines in the Madras Presidency, notably those at Chidambaram,[36] Madura, and Tiruvannāmalai. Unfortunately, however, much of the work has been executed in the most lamentable modern taste, and it is saddening to contrast the pitiful outcome of their heavy outlay with the results which might have been attained under judicious guidance. The decoration in the new Kaliyāna Mahāl in the Madura temple is mainly inferior varnished wood-carving, looking-glasses, and coloured glass balls. The same style has been followed at Tiruvannāmalai, although lying scattered about in the outer courts of the temple are enough of the old pierced granite pillars to make perhaps the finest mantapam in South India. Owing to their wealth and their money-lending, the Nāttukōttai Chettis have been called the Jews of South India, but their kindliness and charity deserve more recognition than this description accords.”
I am informed that the property of a woman (jewels, vessels, investments, etc.), on her decease, goes to her daughters. As among other Hindu castes, the eldest son may retain the personal effects of his father, and, with the consent of his brothers, may retain his house. But the value thereof is deducted from his share in the property.
It is stated in the Madura Manual that the “Nāttukōttai Settis in particular are notorious for their greed, and most amusing stories are told about them. However wealthy they may be, they usually live in the most penurious manner, and they will never by any chance show mercy to a debtor, so long as he shall have a penny left, or the chance of earning one. However, to make amends for their rapacity, they are in the habit of spending large sums now and then in works of charity. And, whatever faults there may be, they are most excellent men of business. Indeed, until quite lately, the good faith and honesty of a Nāttukōttai Setti were proverbial, and are even now conspicuous. The Nāttukōttai Settis claim to be a good caste, and asserted that they emigrated to this district thousands of years ago from a town called Kāveripattanam, in consequence of an intolerable persecution. But the other Settis will not admit the truth of their story, and affect to despise them greatly, alleging even that they are the bastard descendants of a Muhammadan man and a Kalla woman. The word Nāttukōttai is said to be a corruption of Nāttarasangkōttai, the name of a small village near Sivaganga. But this derivation appears to be doubtful.” The name is usually said to be derived from Nāttukōttai, or country fort.
It has been said that “the Nāttukōttai Chettis, in organisation, co-operation, and business methods, are as remarkable as the European merchants. Very few of them have yet received any English education. They regard education as at present given in public schools as worse than useless for professional men, as it makes men theoretical, and scarcely helps in practice. The simple but strict training which they give their boys, the long and tedious apprenticeship which even the sons of the richest among them have to undergo, make them very efficient in their profession, and methodical in whatever they undertake to do.”
Concerning the Nāttukōttai Chettis, Mr. P. R. Sundara Aiyar writes as follows.[37] “The first and chiefest aim of a Nāttukōttai Chetti is to make as much money as possible. He does not regard usury as a sin. As a little boy of ten or twelve, he begins to apply himself to business, learns accounts, and attends the shop of his father. As soon as he marries, his father gives him a separate home, or rather compels him to live separately, though often in the same house as his parents. This makes him self-reliant, and produces in him a desire to save as much money as possible. He is given a certain allowance out of the paternal estate, but, if he spends more, he is debited with the excess amount. Every one consequently tries to increase his stock of individual savings. Even the women earn money in a variety of ways. Every rupee saved is laid out at as high a rate of interest as possible. It is commonly stated that a rupee, laid out at the birth of a child at compound interest at 12 per cent., will amount to a lakh of rupees by the time he attains the age of a hundred. The habits of a Nāttukōttai Chetti are very simple, and his living is very cheap, even when he is rich. So strict are the Chettis in pecuniary matters that, if a relation visits them, he gets only his first meal free, and if he stays longer, is quietly debited with the cost of his stay.”
The Nāttukōttai Chettis[38] are said to employ Kammālans, Valaiyans, Kallans, and Vallambans as their cooks. They are permitted to enter the interior of Hindu temples, and approach near to the innermost doorway of the central shrine. This privilege is doubtless accorded to them owing to the large sums of money which they spend on temples, and in endowing charitable institutions. It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Madura district, that “of the profits of their commercial transactions, a fixed percentage (called magamai) is usually set aside for charity. Some of the money so collected is spent on keeping up Sanskrit schools, but most of it has been laid out in the repair and restoration of the temples of the south, especial attention being paid to those shrines (pādal petta sthalangal, as they are called), which were hymned by the four great poet-saints, Mānikya Vāchakar, Appar, Tirugnāna Sambandhar, and Sundaramūrti.” “The Chettis,” Mr. Sundara Aiyar writes, “are believed to be the most charitable class in Southern India, and undoubtedly they spend the largest amount of money on charity. They set apart a fraction of their profits for charity. They levy rates among themselves for local charities, wherever they go. The income obtained from the rates is generally spent on temples. In new places like Ceylon, Burma, and Singapore, they build new temples, generally dedicated to Subramanya Swāmi. In India itself, they establish festivals in existing temples, and undertake the repair of temples. Immense sums have been spent by them recently in the renovation and restoration of ancient temples. We should not be surprised to be told that the amount spent within the last thirty years alone amounts to a crore of rupees. Being Saivites, they do not generally care for Vaishnava temples. And, even among Saiva temples, only such as have special sanctity, and have been sung about by the Saiva Nainars or Bhaktas, are patronised by them. They have devoted large sums to the establishment of comfortable choultries (rest-houses), feeding houses, Vēdic and recently also Sastraic pāthasālas (schools). They have established schools for the education of the Kurukal or the priestly class. And, in fact, every charity of the orthodox Hindu type finds generous support among them.”
It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Madura district, that the gōpurams of the Madura temple “have been repaired of late years at great cost by the Nāttukōttai Chettis. The northern tower used to consist only of the brick and stone-work storeys, and was known in consequence as the mottai (literally bald) gōpuram. Recently, however, a courageous Chetti, who cared nothing for the superstition that it is most unlucky to complete a building left unfinished, placed the usual plaster top upon it.”
In recent years, the temple at Chidambaram has been renovated by the Nāttukōttai Chettis, who “have formed for this and similar restorations a fund which is made up of a fee of four annas per cent. levied from their clients on all sums borrowed by the latter. The capital of this is invested, and the interest thereon devoted exclusively to such undertakings.”[39]