The male members of the community are called Nāyādis, and the females Nāyādichis. The boys are called Molayans, and the young girls Manichis. Succession is in the male line (makkathāyam).
A thatched shed with palm-leaf walls, a few earthen pots, and a chopper, constitute the Nāyādi’s property. He occasionally collects honey and bees-wax, and also the gum (matti pasai) from the mattipāl tree (Ailanthus malabarica), which, when burnt, is used as temple incense and for fumigating the bed-chamber. He receives toddy in exchange for the honey and wax, and copper coins for the gum, with which he purchases luxuries in the shape of salt, chillies, dried fish, tobacco, and liquor. He makes rough ropes from the malanar plant, and the bark of the kayyūl tree (Bauhinia). The bark is soaked in water, sun-dried, and the fibre manufactured into rope. He also makes slings of fibre, wherewith he knocks over birds, and mats from a species of Cyperus.
According to custom, the Nāyādi has to offer four ropes, each eight yards long, to every Nambūtiri illam, and two ropes to every Nāyar house near his settlement, on the occasion of the Vishu and Ōnam festivals. In return he receives a fixed measure of paddy (rice). The ropes are used for tethering cattle, and for drawing water from the well. By a wise dispensation of the ancient local chieftains, to each Nāyādi is assigned a desom (portion of a parish), within which he enjoys certain privileges. And no Nāyādi has any business to poach on his preserves. The privileges are these. On birthdays, anniversaries, and festive occasions, the Nāyādi receives his share of curry and rice, tied up in an old cloth. When a person is sick, a black country-made kambli (blanket), with gingelly (Sesamum), mustard, turmeric, and cocoanut tied up in the four corners, is passed three times over the patient and presented to a Nāyādi, together with a palm umbrella, a stick, and a cucumber. This is called kala-dhānam, or offering to Yama, the god of death, whose attack has to be warded off by propitiatory offerings. The Nāyādi accepts the gifts, and prays for the long life and prosperity of the giver. Placing them before his own family god, he prays that the life of the sick person may be spared, and that the disease may not be transferred to him.
Like the Cherumans, the Nāyādis drink, but they cannot afford to buy as much toddy as the former, for the Cheruman works regularly for a daily wage. Monkeys, which are very troublesome in gardens, are shot down by the higher classes, and given to the Nāyādis to eat. Their dietary includes rats, mungooses, pigs, deer, paraquets, the koel (cuckoo), doves, quails, fowls, paddy-birds, hares, tortoises, Varanus (lizard), crocodiles, and fish. They abstain from eating the flesh of dogs, cats, snakes, land-crabs, shell-fish, and beef. Among vegetables, the tubers of yams (Dioscorea) and Colocasia are included. They produce fire by friction with two sticks of Litsœa sebifera, in the shorter of which a cavity is scooped out. They do not, like the Todas, put powdered charcoal in the cavity, but ignite the cloth rag by means of the red-hot wood dust produced by the friction.
When a woman is pregnant, she craves for the flesh of a monkey or jungle squirrel during the sixth month. During the seventh month, a ceremony is performed, to relieve her of the influence of devils, who may be troubling her. It is called ozhinnukalayuka. Abortion is attributed to the malign influence of evil spirits. To ward off this, they tie round the neck a magic thread, and invoke the aid of their hill gods and the spirits of their ancestors. They erect a special hut for delivery, to which the woman retires. When she is in labour, her husband shampooes his own abdomen, while praying to the gods for her safe delivery—a custom which seems to suggest the couvade. As soon as his wife is delivered, he offers thanks to the gods “for having got the baby out.” The woman observes pollution for ten days, during which her husband avoids seeing her. Any deformity in the child is attributed to the evil influence of the gods. On the twenty-eighth day after birth, the ceremony of naming the child takes place. The name given to the first-born son is that of the paternal grandfather, and to the first-born daughter that of the maternal grandmother. In the fifth year, the ear-boring ceremony takes place, and the operation is performed by the child’s uncle. A piece of brass wire takes the place of ear-rings. Girls wear a plug of wood in the lobes. The Nāyādichis do not, like the Cheruman women, wear bracelets, but have many rows of beads round their necks, and hanging over their bosoms.
When a girl reaches puberty, a Nāyādichi leads her to a tank (pond), in which she bathes, after a pāndi, composed of several pieces of plantain leaf tied together, has been carried three or four times round her. She must not touch any utensils, and must abstain from touching her head with the hand, and, if the skin itches, the body must be scratched with a small stick.
Concerning a very interesting form of marriage, Mr. T. K. Gopal Panikkar writes as follows.[46] “A large hut is constructed of ‘holly’ and other leaves, inside which the girl is ensconced. Then all the young men and women of the village gather round the hut, and form a ring about it. The girl’s father, or the nearest male relative, sits a short distance from the crowd, with a tom-tom in his hands. Then commences the music, and a chant is sung by the father, which has been freely translated as follows:—
Take the stick, my sweetest daughter,
Now seize the stick, my dearest love,
Should you not capture the husband you wish for,