The following story was given regarding the origin of the Vēlans and Mannāns. Once upon a time, when Paramēswara and his wife Parvati were amusing themselves, the latter chanced to make an elephant with earth, which was accidentally trodden on by the former, whence arose a man who stood bowing before them. He was called the Mannān because he came out of man (earth), and to him was assigned his present occupation. This tradition is referred to in the songs which are sung on the fourth day of a girl’s first menses, when she takes a ceremonial bath to free her from pollution.
The Vēlans are found all over the southern parts of the State, as their brethren are in the northern parts. They live in thatched huts in cocoanut gardens, while the Mannāns occupy similar dwellings in small compounds either of their own, or of some landlord whose tenant they may be.
When a girl attains puberty, she is at once bathed, and located in a room in the hut. Her period of seclusion is four days. On the morning of the fourth day, she is seated in a pandal (booth) put up in front of the hut, and made to hold in her hand a leafy vessel filled with rice, a few annas and a lighted wick, when a few of the castemen sing songs connected with puberty till so late as one or two o’clock, when the girl is bathed. After this, the castemen and women who are invited are feasted along with the girl, who is neatly dressed and adorned in her best. Again the girl takes her seat in the pandal and the tunes begin, and are continued till seven or eight o’clock next morning, when the ceremony comes to an end. The songsters are remunerated with three paras of paddy (unhusked rice), twenty-eight cocoanuts, thirteen annas and four pies, and two pieces of cloth. The songs are in some families postponed till the sixteenth day, or to the day of the girl’s marriage. Very poor people dispense with them altogether. The following is a translation of one of the songs.
One day a girl and her friends were playing merrily on the banks of a river, when one of them noticed some blood on her dress. They took her home, and her parents believed it to have been caused by some wound, but on enquiry knew that their daughter was in her menses. The daughter asked her mother as to what she did with the cloth she wore during her menses, when she was told that she bathed and came home, leaving it on a branch of a mango tree. On further enquiry, she knew that the goddess Ganga purified herself by a bath, leaving her cloth in the river; that the goddess earth buried it in earth; and that Panchali returned home after a bath, leaving her dress on a branch of a banyan tree. Unwilling to lose her dress, the girl went to the god Paramēswara, and implored his aid to get somebody to have her cloth washed. When muttering a mantram (prayer), he sprinkled some water, a few drops of which went up and became stars, and from a few more, which fell on the leaves of a banyan tree, there came out a man, to whom was assigned the task of washing the cloths of the women in their courses, wearing which alone the women are purified by a bath.
When a young man of the Vēlan caste has attained the marriageable age, his father and maternal uncle select a suitable girl as a wife, after a proper examination and agreement of their horoscopes. The preliminaries are arranged in the hut of the girl, and a portion of the bride’s price, fifteen fanams, is paid. The auspicious day for the wedding is fixed, and the number of guests that should attend it is determined. The wedding is celebrated at the girl’s hut, in front of which a shed is put up. The ceremony generally takes place at night. A few hours before it, the bridegroom and his party arrive at the bride’s hut, where they are welcomed, and seated on mats spread on the floor in the pandal (shed). At the auspicious hour, when the relatives on both sides and the castemen are assembled, the bridegroom’s enangan (relation by marriage) hands over a metal plate containing the wedding suit, the bride’s price, and a few packets of betel leaves and nuts to the bride’s enangan, who takes everything except the cloth to be given to the bride’s mother, and returns the plate to the same man. The bridegroom’s sister dresses the bride in the new cloth, and takes her to the pandal, to seat her along with the bridegroom, and to serve one or two spoonfuls of milk and a few pieces of plantain fruit, when the bride is formally declared to be the wife of the young man and a member of his family. The guests assembled are treated to a feast, after which they are served with betel leaves, nuts, and tobacco. The rest of the night is spent in merry songs and dancing. The songs refer to the marriage of Sīta, the wife of Rāma, of Subhadra, wife of Arjuna, and of Panchali, wife of the Pāndavas. Next morning, the bride’s party is treated to rice kanji (gruel) at eight o’clock, and to a sumptuous meal at twelve o’clock, after which they repair to the bridegroom’s hut, accompanied by the bride, her parents and relations, all of whom receive a welcome. The formalities are gone through here also, and the bride’s party is feasted. On the fourth morning, the newly married couple bathe and dress themselves neatly, to worship the deity at the local temple. After dinner they go to the bride’s hut, where they spend a week or two, after which the bridegroom returns to his hut with his wife. It is now that the bride receives a few ornaments, a metal dish for taking meals, a lamp, and a few metal utensils, which vary according to the circumstances of her parents. Henceforward, the husband and wife live with the parents of the former in their family.
Among the Mannāns of the northern parts of the State, the following marriage customs are found to prevail. The bridegroom’s father, his maternal uncle, enangan, and the third or middle man, conjointly select the girl after due examination and agreement of horoscopes. The preliminaries are arranged as before, and the day for the wedding is determined. At the auspicious moment on the wedding day, when the relatives on both sides and the castemen are assembled at the shed in front of the bride’s hut, the bridegroom’s father takes up a metal plate containing the wedding dress, the bride’s price (twelve fanams), and a few bundles of betel leaves, nuts and tobacco, and repeats a formula, of which the substance runs thus. “A lighted lamp is placed in the shed. Four mats are spread round it in the direction of east, west, north and south. A metal plate, containing rice, flowers and betel leaves, is placed in front of the lamp, and the elderly members of the caste and the relatives on both sides are assembled. According to the traditional custom of the caste, the young man’s father, maternal uncle, enangan, and the middle man conjointly selected the girl after satisfying themselves with due agreement of horoscopes, and ascertaining the illams and kriyams on both sides. They have negotiated for the girl, and settled the day on which the marriage is to take place. In token of this, they have taken meals in the bride’s family. The claims of the girl for two pieces of cloth for the Ōnam festival, two fanams or nine annas for Thiruwatira (a festival in Dhanu, i.e., December-January), and Vishu, are satisfied, and she is by the young man taken to the village festival. They have now come for the celebration of the wedding. There have been times when he has heard of 101 fanams as the price of the bride, and has seen 51 fanams as the price of the same, but it is now 21 fanams. It thus varies, and may be increased or diminished according to the will, pleasure, and means of the parties. With four fanams as the price of the bride and eight fanams for ornaments, and with the bundles of betel leaves, nuts, and the wedding dress in a metal plate, may I, ye elderly members, give it to the girl’s parents?” “Shall I,” answers the girl’s father, “accept it?” Receiving it, he gives it to his brother-in-law, who gives it to the enangan, and he takes everything in it except the wedding suit, which he hands over to the bridegroom’s enangan, who gives it to the bridegroom’s sister, to have the bride dressed in it. The other portions of the ceremony are the same as those described above. In Palghat and the Chittūr tāluk, the following declaration is made. “According to the customary traditions of the caste, when a young man of one locality comes to tame a girl of another locality, and takes her as his wife, ye elderly members assembled here, may these four bundles of betel leaves, four measures of rice, two pieces of cloth, and ten fanams be given to the bride’s parents?” “Shall these be accepted?” says the bride’s enangan. When the bride accompanies the bridegroom to his hut, the following formal statement is made. “Thrash thou mayst, but not with a stick. Thou mayst not accuse her of bad conduct. Thou mayst not cut off her ears, breasts, nose and tufts of hair. Thou mayst not take her to a tank (to bathe), or to a temple (for swearing). Thou mayst keep and protect her as long as thou wantest. When thou dost not want her, give her maintenance, and take back the children, for they are thine own.”
Polygamy is not prohibited, but is rarely practiced by the Vēlans and Mannāns. They are very poor, and find it difficult to support their wives and children born in a single married life. Want of children, bodily defect or incurable disease, or want of additional hands for work, may sometimes induce them to take more than one wife. Polyandry does not prevail among the Vēlans, but is common among the Mannāns of the northern parts of the State. A Vēlan woman who loses her husband may marry another of her caste, if she likes, a year after her husband’s death. The formalities of the wedding consist in the husband giving two pieces of cloth to the woman who wishes to enter into wedlock with him. After this she forfeits all claim on the property of her former husband. Among the Mannāns, a widow may marry any one of her brothers-in-law. A woman committing adultery with a member of her own caste is well thrashed. One who disposes of herself to a member of a lower caste is sent out of caste. She may then become a Christian or Muhammadan convert. If an unmarried young woman becomes pregnant, and this is known to her castemen, they convene a meeting, and find out the secret lover, whom they compel to take her as his wife. Very often they are both fined, and the fine is spent on toddy. Both among the Vēlans and Mannāns, divorce is easy. A man who does not like his wife has only to take her to her original home and give charge of her to her parents, informing them of the circumstances which have induced him to adopt such a course. A woman who does not like her husband may relinquish him, and join her parents. In both cases, the woman is at liberty to marry again.
When a woman is pregnant, the ceremony of pulikuti (drinking of tamarind juice) is performed for her during the ninth month at the hut of her husband. The juice is extracted from tamarind (Tamarindus indica), kotapuli (Garcinia Cambogia), nerinjampuli (Hibiscus surattensis) and the leaves of ambazhampuli (Spondias mangifera). A large branch of ambazhampuli is stuck in the ground in the central courtyard, near which the pregnant woman is seated. The husband gives her three small spoonfuls, and then seven times with her cherutāli (neck ornament) dipped in the juice. Among the washermen, the woman’s brother gives it three times to her. Should her sister-in-law give it in a small vessel, she has a claim to two pieces of cloth. After this, a quarter measure of gingelly (Sesamum) oil is poured upon her head, to be rubbed all over her body, and she bathes, using Acacia Intsia as soap. Those of her relatives and the castemen who are invited are sumptuously fed. Some of them crack jokes by asking the pregnant woman to promise her baby son or daughter to theirs when grown up. All bless her for a safe delivery and healthy child.
A woman who is about to become a mother is lodged in a separate room for her delivery, attended by her mother and one or two grown-up women, who act as midwives. The period of pollution is fifteen days. For the first three days the woman is given a dose of dried ginger mixed with palmyra (Borassus flabellifer) jaggery (crude sugar), and for the next three days a mixture of garlic and jaggery. Her diet during the first three days is rice kanji with scrapings of cocoanut, which are believed to help the formation of the mother’s milk. For the next three days, the juice of kotapuli (Garcinia Cambogia), cumin seeds, and kotal urikki (Achyranthes aspera), and of the leaves of muringa (Moringa pterygosperma) is given, after which, for a few more days, a dose of the flesh of fowl mixed with mustard, cumin seeds and uluva (Trigonella fœnum-græcum) boiled in gingelly oil is taken. She bathes in water boiled with medicinal herbs on the fourth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, and sixteenth days. On the morning of the sixteenth day, her enangathi (enangan’s wife) cleans her room with water mixed with cow-dung, and sweeps the compound. Wearing a māttu (washed cloth) brought by a washerman, she bathes to be freed from pollution. She may now enter the hut, and mingle with the rest of the family.
Among Vēlans and Mannāns, the sons inherit the property of their fathers, but they are very poor, and have little or nothing to inherit.