In their nomadic life the Yānādis have learnt by experience the properties and uses of herbs and roots, with which they treat fever, rheumatism, and other diseases. They have their own remedies for cobra bite and scorpion sting. It is said that the Yānādis alone are free from elephantiasis, which affects the remaining population of Sriharikota.
It is noted by the Rev. G. N. Thomssen that “while it has been impossible to gather these people into schools, because of their shyness and jungle wildness, Christian missionaries, especially the American Baptist missionaries, have succeeded in winning the confidence of these degraded children of nature, and many of them have joined the Christian Church. Some read and write well, and a few have even learned English. We have a small, but growing settlement of Christianised Yānādis at Bapatla.”
To sum up the Yānādi. It is notorious that, in times of scarcity, he avoids the famine relief works, for the simple reason that he does not feel free on them. Nevertheless, a few are in the police service. Some are kāvalgars (watchmen), farm labourers, scavengers, stone-masons or bricklayers, others are pounders of rice, or domestic servants, and are as a rule faithful. They earn a livelihood also in various subsidiary ways, by hunting, fishing, cobra-charming, collecting honey or fuel, rearing and selling pigs, practicing medicine as quacks, and by thieving. “An iron implement,” Mr. F. S. Mullaly writes,[3] called the sikkaloo kōl, is kept by them ostensibly for the purpose of digging roots, but it is really their jemmy, and used in the commission of burglary. It is an ordinary iron tool, pointed at both ends, one end being fitted in a wooden handle. With this they can dig through a wall noiselessly and quickly, and many houses are thus broken into in one night, until a good loot is obtained. House-breakings are usually committed during the first quarter of the moon. Yānādis confess their own crimes readily, but will never implicate accomplices.... Women are useful in the disposal of stolen property. At dusk they go round on their begging tours selling mats, which they make, and take the opportunity of dropping a word to the women of cheap things for sale, and the temptation is seldom resisted. Stolen property is also carried in their marketing baskets to the village grocer, the Kōmati. Among the wild (Adavi) Yānādis, women are told off to acquire information while begging, but they chiefly rely on the liquor-shopkeepers for news, which may be turned to useful account.”[4]
Yānāti.—The Yānātis, Yēnētis, or Ēnētis, are a class of cultivators in the Ganjam and Vizagapatam districts, between whom and the Yānādis some confusion has arisen. For example, it is noted, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that it is curious to find the Yānādi sub-division of the Velamas so strongly represented, for there is at the present day a wide gulf between Velamas and Yānādis. Again, in the Census Report, 1901, it is noticed under the heading Yānāti that “entries of this name were clubbed with Yānādi, but it has since been reported that, in Bissumcuttack taluk of the Vizagapatam Agency, there is a separate caste called Yānāti or Yēnēti Dora, which is distinct from either Yānādi or Konda Dora.”
It is said that the Yānātis of Ganjam also go by the name of Entamara and Gainta or Gayinta.
Yāta.—The Yātas are the toddy-drawers of Ganjam and Vizagapatam. The caste name is a corrupt form of ita, meaning date palm, from which the toddy is secured. It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “toddy is obtained from the palmyra (Borassus flabellifer) and date palm (Phœnix sylvestris). The toddy-drawers are usually of the Yāta and Segidi castes. The palmyra is tapped by cutting off the end of the flower spathe, and the date palm by making an incision, like an inverted V, close under the crown of leaves. In the zamindaris, little care is taken to see that date trees are not over-tapped, and hundreds of trees may be seen ruined, and even killed by excessive tapping.” Many members of the caste are engaged in the manufacture of baskets and boxes from palm leaves. The Yātas are said to be responsible for a good deal of the crime in portions of the Vizagapatam district.
For the following note on the Yātas of the Vizagapatam district, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. They are a Telugu-speaking people, and the caste is organised on the same lines as many other Telugu castes. In each locality where they are settled, there is a headman called Kulampedda, who, with the assistance of the caste elders, settles disputes and affairs affecting the community. The caste is, like other Telugu castes, divided up into numerous intipērus or exogamous septs. The custom of mēnarikam, according to which a man marries his maternal uncle’s daughter, is the rule. If the girl, whom a man claims in accordance with this custom, is not given to him, his mother raises such a howl that her brother is compelled by the castemen to come to terms. If he still refuses to give up his daughter, and bestows her on another man, the protest of his sister is said to destroy the happiness of the pair. Girls are married before or after puberty. The marriage ceremonies last over three days, and are carried out either at the house of the bride or bridegroom, the former if the parents are prosperous and influential people in the community. A Brāhman officiates, and ties the satamānam on the bride’s neck. On the evening of the third day, at the bride’s house, presents called katnam, in the shape of rings, waist-bands, and a gold bangle for the right upper arm, are given to the bridegroom. The value of these presents bears a fixed proportion to that of the vōli or bride-price. The pair live for three days at the bride’s house, and then proceed to the house of the bridegroom, where they stay during the next three days. They then return to the home of the bride, where they once more stay for three days, at the end of which the bridegroom returns to his house. The consummation ceremony is a separate event, and, if the girl has reached puberty, takes place a few days after the marriage ceremony. The remarriage of widows is permitted. The satamānam is tied on the bride’s neck by the Kulampedda. Divorce is also recognised, and a man marrying a divorced woman has to pay twelve rupees, known as moganāltappu, or new husband’s fine. The divorced woman has to return all the jewellery which was given to her by her former husband.
The dead are cremated, and a man of the washerman caste usually assists in igniting the pyre. There is an annual ceremony in memory of the dead, at which the house is cleaned, and purified with cow-dung. A meal on a more than usually liberal scale is cooked, and incense and camphor are burnt before the entrance to the house. Food is then offered to the dead, who are invoked by name, and the celebrants of the rite partake of a hearty meal.
The usual caste titles are Naidu and Setti.
Yeddula (bulls).—An exogamous sept of Bōya and Kāpu.