Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6 of 7

by Edgar Thurston

Panisavan.—Panisavan is defined in the Salem Manual as “a corruption of paniseygiravan (panisaivon), literally meaning one who works (or does service), and is the caste name of the class, whose business it is to carry news of death to the relations of the deceased, and to blow the thārai or long trumpet.” According to Mr. H. A. Stuart,[43] Panisavan appears to answer among the Tamilians to the Dāsaris or Tādas of the Telugus. It is a mendicant caste, worshipping Siva. Unlike the Tādas, however, they often employ themselves in cultivation, and are, on the whole, a more temperate and respectable class. Their priests are Brāhmans, and they eat flesh, and drink alcoholic liquor very freely. The dead are generally burned.

There are two classes of Panisavans, of which one works for the right-hand section, and the other for the left. This division is purely professional, and there is apparently no bar to intermarriage between the two classes. The insignia of a Panisavan are the conch-shell (Turbinella rapa) and thārai, which he supports from the ground by means of a bamboo pole while he blows it. At marriage processions, it is his duty to go in front, sounding the thārai from time to time. On such occasions, and at festivals of the village goddesses, the thārai is decorated with a string bearing a number of small triangular pieces of cloth, and tufts of yak’s hair. The cloth should be white for the right-hand section, and of five different colours for the left. At the present day, the Panisavan is more in request for funerals than for weddings. In the city of Madras, all the materials necessary for the bier are sold by Panisavans, who also keep palanquins for the conveyance of the corpse in stock, which are let out on hire. At funerals, the Panisavan has to follow the corpse, blowing his conch-shell. The thārai is only used if the deceased was an important personage. When the son goes round the corpse with a pot of water, the Panisavan accompanies him, and blows the conch. On the last day of the death ceremonies (karmāndhiram), the Panisavan should be present, and blow his conch, especially when the tāli (marriage badge) is removed from a widow’s neck. In some places, the Panisavan conveys the news of death, while in others this duty is carried out by a barber. In the Chingleput and North Arcot districts, the Panisavans constitute a separate caste, and have no connection with the Nōkkans, who are beggars attached to the Palli or Vanniyan caste. In South Arcot and Tanjore, on the other hand, the name Nōkkan is used to signify the caste, which performs the duties of the Panisavan, for which it seems to be a synonym. The Panisavans of the Tinnevelly district have nothing in common with those of the northern districts, e.g., Chingleput and North Arcot, whose duty it is to attend to the funeral ceremonies of the non-Brāhman castes. The main occupations of the Tinnevelly Panisavans are playing in temples on the nāgasaram (reed instrument), and teaching Dēva-dāsis dancing. Another occupation, which is peculiar to the Tinnevelly Panisavans, is achu vēlai, i.e., the preparation of the comb to which the warp threads of a weaving loom are tied. Socially the Panisavans occupy a lowly position, but they use the title Pulavar. Their other titles are Pandāram, Pillai, and Mudali.

Paniyan.—The Paniyans are a dark-skinned tribe, short in stature, with broad noses, and curly or wavy hair, inhabiting the Wynād, and those portions of the Ernād, Calicut, Kurumbranād and Kottayam tāluks of Malabar, which skirt the base of the ghāts, and the Mudanād, Cherangōd, and Namblakōd amshams of the Nīlgiri district.

Paniyan.

A common belief, based on their general appearance, prevails among the European planting community that the Paniyans are of African origin, and descended from ancestors who were wrecked on the Malabar coast. This theory, however, breaks down on investigation. Of their origin nothing definite is known. The Nāyar Janmis (landlords) say that, when surprised in the act of some mischief or alarmed, the Paniyan calls out ‘Ippi’! ‘Ippi’! as he runs away, and they believe this to have been the name of the country whence they came originally; but they are ignorant as to where Ippimala, as they call it, is situated. Kapiri (Africa or the Cape?) is also sometimes suggested as their original habitat, but only by those who have had the remarks of Europeans communicated to them. The Paniyan himself, though he occasionally puts forward one or other of the above places as the home of his forefathers, has no fixed tradition bearing on their arrival in Malabar, beyond one to the effect that they were brought from a far country, where they were found living by a Rāja, who captured them, and carried them off in such a miserable condition that a man and his wife only possessed one cloth between them, and were so timid that it was only by means of hunting nets that they were captured.

The number of Paniyans, returned at the census, 1891, was 33,282, and nine sub-divisions were registered; but, as Mr. H. A. Stuart, the Census Commissioner, observes:—“Most of these are not real, and none has been returned by any considerable number of persons.” Their position is said to be very little removed from that of a slave, for every Paniyan is some landlord’s ‘man’; and, though he is, of course, free to leave his master, he is at once traced, and good care is taken that he does not get employment elsewhere.

In the fifties of the last century, when planters first began to settle in the Wynād, they purchased the land with the Paniyans living on it, who were practically slaves of the land-owners. The Paniyans used formerly to be employed by rich receivers as professional coffee thieves, going out by night to strip the bushes of their berries, which were delivered to the receiver before morning. Unlike the Badagas of the Nīlgiris, who are also coffee thieves, and are afraid to be out after dark, the Paniyans are not afraid of bogies by night, and would not hesitate to commit nocturnal depredations. My friend, Mr. G. Romilly, on whose estate my investigation of the Paniyans was mainly carried out, assures me that, according to his experience, the domesticated Paniyan, if well paid, is honest, and fit to be entrusted with the responsible duties of night watchman.

In some localities, where the Janmis have sold the bulk of their land, and have consequently ceased to find regular employment for them, the Paniyans have taken kindly to working on coffee estates, but comparatively few are thus employed. The word Paniyan means labourer, and they believe that their original occupation was agriculture as it is, for the most part, at the present day. Those, however, who earn their livelihood on estates, only cultivate rice and rāgi (Eleusine coracana) for their own cultivation; and women and children may be seen digging up jungle roots, or gathering pot-herbs for food. They will not eat the flesh of jackals, snakes, vultures, lizards, rats, or other vermin. But I am told that they eat land-crabs, in lieu of expensive lotions, to prevent baldness and grey hairs. They have a distinct partiality for alcohol, and those who came to be measured by me were made more than happy by a present of a two-anna piece, a cheroot, and a liberal allowance of undiluted fiery brandy from the Meppādi bazār. The women are naturally of a shy disposition, and used formerly to run away and hide at the sight of a European. They were at first afraid to come and see me, but confidence was subsequently established, and all the women came to visit me, some to go through the ordeal of measurement, others to laugh at and make derisive comments on those who were undergoing the operation.

Practically the whole of the rice cultivation in the Wynād is carried out by the Paniyans attached to edoms (houses or places) or dēvasoms (temple property) of the great Nāyar landlords; and Chettis and Māppillas also frequently have a few Paniyans, whom they have bought or hired by the year at from four to eight rupees per family from a Janmi. When planting paddy or herding cattle, the Paniyan is seldom seen without the kontai or basket-work protection from the rain. This curious, but most effective substitute for the umbrella-hat of the Malabar coast, is made of split reeds interwoven with ‘arrow-root’ leaves, and shaped something like a huge inverted coal-scoop turned on end, and gives to the individual wearing it the appearance of a gigantic mushroom. From the nature of his daily occupation the Paniyan is often brought in contact with wild animals, and is generally a bold, and, if excited, as he usually is on an occasion such as the netting of a tiger, a reckless fellow. The young men of the villages vie with each other in the zeal which they display in carrying out the really dangerous work of cutting back the jungle to within a couple of spear-lengths of the place where the quarry lies hidden, and often make a show of their indifference by turning and conversing with their friends outside the net.