Besides cultivating, the Savaras collect Bauhinia leaves, and sell them to traders for making leaf platters. The leaves of the jel-adda tree (Bauhinia purpurea) are believed to be particularly appreciated by the Savara spirits, and offerings made to them should be placed in cups made thereof. The Savaras also collect various articles of minor forest produce, honey and wax. They know how to distil liquor from the flowers of the mahua (Bassia latifolia). The process of distillation has been thus described.[29] “The flowers are soaked in water for three or four days, and are then boiled with water in an earthenware chatty. Over the top of this is placed another chatty, mouth downwards, the join between the two being made air-tight by being tied round with a bit of cloth, and luted with clay. From a hole made in the upper chatty, a hollow bamboo leads to a third pot, specially made for the purpose, which is globular, and has no opening except that into which the bamboo pipe leads. This last is kept cool by pouring water constantly over it, and the distillate is forced into it through the bamboo, and there condenses.”
In a report on his tour through the Savara country in 1863, the Agent to the Governor of Madras reported as follows. “At Gunapur I heard great complaints of the thievish habits of the Soura tribes on the hills dividing Gunapur from Pedda Kimedy. They are not dacoits, but very expert burglers, if the term can be applied to digging a hole in the night through a mud wall. If discovered and hard pressed, they do not hesitate to discharge their arrows, which they do with unerring aim, and always with fatal result. Three or four murders have been perpetrated by these people in this way since the country has been under our management. I arranged with the Superintendent of Police to station a party of the Armed Reserve in the ghaut leading to Soura country. One or two cases of seizure and conviction will suffice to put a check to the crime.”
It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “in 1864 trouble occurred with the Savaras. One of their headmen having been improperly arrested by the police of Pottasingi, they effected a rescue, killed the Inspector and four constables, and burnt down the station-house. The Rāja of Jeypore was requested to use his influence to procure the arrest of the offenders, and eventually twenty-four were captured, of whom nine were transported for life, and five were sentenced to death, and hanged at Jaltēru, at the foot of the ghāt to Pottasingi. Government presented the Rāja with a rifle and other gifts in acknowledgment of his assistance. The country did not immediately calm down, however, and, in 1865, a body of police, who were sent to establish a post in the hills, were attacked, and forced to beat a retreat down the ghāt. A large force was then assembled, and, after a brief but harassing campaign, the post was firmly occupied in January, 1866. Three of the ringleaders of this rising were transported for life. The hill Savaras remained timid and suspicious for some years afterwards, and, as late as 1874, the reports mention it as a notable fact that they were beginning to frequent markets on the plains, and that the low-country people no longer feared to trust themselves above the ghāts.”
In 1905, Government approved the following proposals for the improvement of education among the Savaras and other hill tribes in the Ganjam and Vizagapatam Agencies, so far as Government schools are concerned:—
(1) That instruction to the hill tribes should be given orally through the medium of their own mother tongue, and that, when a Savara knows both Uriya and Telugu, it would be advantageous to educate him in Uriya;
(2) That evening classes be opened whenever possible, the buildings in which they are held being also used for night schools for adults who should receive oral instruction, and that magic-lantern exhibitions might be arranged for occasionally, to make the classes attractive;
(3) That concessions, if any, in the matter of grants admissible to Savaras, Khonds, etc., under the Grant-in-aid Code, be extended to the pupils of the above communities that attend schools in the plains;
(4) That an itinerating agency, who could go round and look after the work of the agency schools, be established and that, in the selection of hill school establishments, preference be given to men educated in the hill schools;
(5) That some suitable form of manual occupation be introduced, wherever possible, into the day’s work, and the schools be supplied with the requisite tools, and that increased grants be given for anything original.
Savara.—A name, denoting hill-men, adopted by Malē Kudiyas.