# Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Kurumba or Kuruman

​Kurumba or Kuruman.— As bearing on the disputed question of the connection between the Kurumbas who dwell in the jungle, and the Kurubas (shepherds ​and weavers) who live in the plains and open country, I may quote the evidence of various witnesses: —
Madras Census Report, 1891. — "The Kurumbas or Kurrubas are the modern representatives of the ancient Kurumbas or Pallavas, who were once so powerful throughout Southern India, but very little trace of their greatness now remains. In the seventh century, the power of the Pallava kings seems to have been at its zenith; but, shortly after this, the Kongu, Chōla, and Chālūkya chiefs succeeded in winning several victories over them. The final overthrow of the Kurumba sovereignty was effected by the Chōla king Adondai about the seventh or eighth century A.D., and the Kurumbas were scattered far and wide. Many fled to the hills, and in the Nīlgiris and the Wynād, in Coorg and Mysore, representatives of this ancient race are now found as wild and uncivilised tribes. Elsewhere the Kurumbas are more advanced, and are usually shepherds, and weavers of coarse woollen blankets."
"Kuruman. — This caste is found in the Nīlgiris and the Wynād, with a slight sprinkling in the Nilambūr and Attapādi hills in Malabar. Their principal occupations are wood-cutting, and the collection of forest produce. The name is merely another form of Kurumban, but, as they differ from the ordinary Kurumbas, it seemed better to show them separately. I think, however, that they were originally identical with the shepherd Kurumbans, and their present separation is merely the result of their isolation in the fastnesses of the Western Ghats, to which their ancestors fled, or gradually retreated after the downfall of the Kurumba
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Mysore Census Report, 1891 — "Kādu Kuruba or Kurumba. — The tribal name of Kuruba has been traced to the primeval occupation of the race, viz., the tending of sheep, perhaps when pre-historic man rose to the pastoral stage. The Uru or civilised Kurubas, who are genuine tillers of the soil, and who are dotted over the country in populous and thriving communities, and many of whom have, under the present 'Pax Britannica,' further developed into enterprising tradesmen and withal lettered Government officials, are the very antipodes of the Kādu or wild Kurubas or Kurumbas. The latter, like the Iruligas and Sōligās, are the denizens of the backwoods of the country, and have been correctly classed under the aboriginal population. The Tamilised name of Kurumba is applied to certain clans dwelling on the heights of the Nīlgiris, who are doubtless the offshoots of the aboriginal Kādu Kuruba stock found in Mysore." ​W. R. King. Aboriginal Tribes of the Nilgiri Hills — "Kurumbas. — This tribe is of another race from the shepherd Kurumbas. The Nīlgiri tribe have neither cattle nor sheep, and in language, dress, and customs, have no affinity whatever with their namesakes."
G. Oppert. Original Inhabitants of India — "Kurubas or Kurumbas. — However separated from each other, and scattered among the Dravidian clans with whom they have dwelt, and however distant from one another they still live, there is hardly a province in the whole of Bharatavarasha which cannot produce, if not some living remnants of this race, at least some remains of past times which prove their presence. Indeed, the Kurumbas must be regarded as very old inhabitants of this land, who can contest with their Dravidian kinsmen the priority of occupation of the Indian soil. The terms Kuruba and Kurumba are originally identical, though the one form is, in different places, employed for the other, and has thus occasionally assumed a special local meaning. Mr. H. B. Grigg appears to contradict himself when, while speaking of the Kurumbas, he says that ' in the low country they are called Kurubas or Cūrubāru, and are divided into such families as Ānē or elephant, Naya or dog, Māle or hill Kurumbas.'* Such a distinction between mountain Kurumbas and plain Kurumbas cannot be established. The Rev. G. Richter will find it difficult to prove that the Kurubas of Mysore are only called so as shepherds, and that no connection exists between these Kurubas and the Kurumbas. Mr. Lewis Rice calls the wild tribes as well as the shepherds Kurubas, but seems to overlook the fact that both terms are identical, and refer to only the ethnological distinction." ​The above extracts will suffice for the purpose of showing that the distinction between the jungle Kurumbas and the more civilised Kurubas, and their relationship towards each other, call for a ' permanent settlement.' And I may briefly place on record the results of anthropometric observations on the jungle Kurumbas of the Nīlgiris, and the domesticated Kurubas of Mysore and the Bellary district, whose stature and nasal index (two factors of primary importance) are compared with those of the jungle Paniyans of Malabar and Kādirs of the Ānaimalai mountains —
| --- | Stature. Average. cm. | Nasal index. Average. | Nasal index. Maximum. |
| Kurubus, Bellary | 162.7 | 74.9 | 92 |
| Kurubas, Mysore | 163.9 | 73.2 | 86 |
| Kurumbas, Nilgiris | 157.5 | 88.8 | 111 |
| Paniyans | 157.4 | 95.1 | 108 |
| Kādirs | 151.7 | 89 | 115 |
A glance at the above table at once shows that there is a closer affinity between the three dark-skinned, short, platyrhine jungle tribes, than between the jungle Kurumbas and the lighter-skinned, taller, and more leptorhine Kurubas.
The domesticated Kurubas are dealt with separately, and, in the remarks which follow, I am dealing solely with the jungle Kurumbas.
The Kādu, or wild Kurumbas of Mysore are divided into "(a) Betta or hill Kurumbas, with sub-divisions called Ānē (elephant), Bevina (nīm tree: Melia Azadirachta), and Kolli (fire-brand) — a small and active race, capable of great fatigue, who are expert woodmen; (b) Jēnu or honey Kurumbas, said to be a darker and ​inferior race, who employ themselves in collecting honey and bees-wax."*
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In a note on the Jēnu and Betta Kurumbas of Mysore, Mr. M. Venkatanarnappa writes as follows. "The Betta are better clothed and fed than the Jēn Kurumbas. Their occupation is kumri (burning and shifting) cultivation. Their women are clever at basket-making. They can be distinguished by the method of dress which their women have adopted, and the way in which the men wear their hair. A Betta woman covers her body below the shoulders by tying a long cloth round the armpits, leaving shoulders and arms bare, whereas a Jēn woman in good circumstances dresses up like the village females, and, if poor, ties a piece of cloth round her loins, and wears another to partially conceal the upper part of her body. Among males, a Betta Kurumba leaves his hair uncut, and gathers it from fore and aft into a knot tied on the crown of the head. A Jēn Kurumba shaves like the ryots, leaving a tuft behind, or clips or crops it, with a curly or bushy growth to protect the head from heat and cold. The Betta and Jēn Kurumbas never intermarry." The Betta Kurumbas are, I am told, excellent elephant mahauts (drivers), and very useful at keddah (elephant-catching) operations.
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given to them in charge. The spirits of the dead are believed to appear in dreams to their old people, and to direct them to make offerings to a female deity named Bettada Chicama, that is, the mother of the hill. Unless these offerings are made, this goddess occasions sickness. In cases of adultery, the husband flogs his wife severely, and, if he is able, beats her paramour. If he be not able, he applies to the gaudo (headman), who does it for him." The Betta Curubaru, Buchanan continues, "live in poor huts near the villages, and the chief employment of the men is the cutting of timber, and making of baskets. With a sharp stick they also dig up spots of ground in the skirts of the forest, and sow them with rāgi (Eleusine Coracana). The men watch at night the fields of the farmers, but they are not so dexterous at this as the Cad Curubaru. In this class, the Cutigas are women that prefer another man to their husband, or widows, who do not wish to relinquish carnal enjoyment. Their children are not considered as illegitimate."
KURUMBA VILLAGE
Of the Kurumbas who are found in the Wynād, Calicut, and Ernād tāluks of Malabar, the following account is given in the Gazetteer of that district. "They are sub-divided into Mullu (bamboo) Kurumbans, Jēn or Tēn (honey) Kurumbans, also called Kādu or Shōla Nāyakkans (or Jēnu Koyyo Shōla Nāyakas, i.e., honey-cutting lords of the woods), and Ūrali or Bēt Kurumbans; of which the first-named class, who consider themselves superior to the others, are cultivators and hunters; the second wood-cutters and collectors of honey; and the third make baskets and implements of agriculture. The Mullu and Tēn Kurumbans have headmen with titles of Mūppan and Mudali respectively conferred by their janmis (landlords). The Kurumbans, like many of the other hill-tribes, use bows and arrows, with which they are expert. The caste deity of the Tēn Kurumbans is called Masti. It is perhaps worth ​remarking that the Ūrali Kurumbans of the Wynaad differ from the other two classes in having no headmen, observing a shorter period of pollution after a birth than any other Malabar tribe and none at all after a death, and in not worshipping any of the Malabar animistic deities."
The chief sub-divisions of the Kurumbas on the Nīlgiris, and in the Wynād, are said, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, to be "Mullu (thorn), Betta or Vetta (hill), Ūrāli (Ūr, a village). Tēn (honey), and Tac'chanādan Mūppan (carpenter headman). Of these, the first and last speak Malayālam, and wear a lock in front of their head in the Malabar fashion. The rest speak Canarese. Ūrali Kurumbas work in metals."
The villages of the Kurumbas on the Nīlgiri hills are, Mr. Grigg writes, * called mottas. They consist generally of only four or five huts, made of mud and wattle, with thatched roofs. The front of the house is sometimes whitewashed, and ornamented with rude drawings of men and animals in red earth or charcoal. They store their grain in large oval baskets, and for bottles they use gourds. They clear a patch round about the village, and sow the ground with rāgi (Eleusine Coracana), tenne (Setaria italica), or kiri (Amarantus). They dig up roots (called gāsū) for food, and collect the jungle produce, honey, resin, gall-nuts, etc., which they barter with low-country traders, and they are clever in catching game in nets, and dispose of the flesh in a surprisingly short time. Kurumbas occasionally take work on coffee plantations, and some earn a livelihood by officiating as priests to the Badagas. They are also employed as musicians at wedding feasts and funerals of the other tribes, where ​they play on clarionets, drums, and tambourines, as well as the būguri. They make baskets of rattan and milk vessels out of a joint of bamboo, as well as nets of a thread called oilhatti. Their women confine themselves to the limited work of their households, fetching water, cooking, etc. The following extract embraces all that can be said of the religion of the Kurumbas. "Some profess to worship Siva, and occasionally women mark their foreheads with the Siva spot. Others, living near Barliar, worship Kuribattraya (lord of many sheep) and the wife of Siva under the name of Musni. They worship also a rough stone under the name of Hiriadēva, setting it up either in a cave, or in a circle of stones like the so-called Kurumba kōvil of the Badagas, which the latter would seem to have borrowed from the Kurumbas. To this they make pūja, and offer cooked rice at the sowing time. They also profess to sacrifice to Hiriadēva a goat, which they kill at their own houses, after sprinkling water, and eat, giving a portion of flesh to the pūjāri (priest). Others say that they have no pūjāri: among such a scattered tribe customs probably vary in each motta" —(Breeks). It is recorded by Dr. Rivers, in connection with the Toda legendary stories of Kwoten, that " one day Kwoten went with Erten of Keadr, who was spoken of as his servant to Poni, in the direction of Polkat (Calicut). At Poni there is a stream called Palpa, the commencement of which may be seen on the Kundahs. Kwoten and Erten went to drink water out of the stream at a place where a goddess (teu) named Terkosh had been bathing .... Finally, they came to Terkosh, who said to Kwoten, "Do not come near me, I am a teu." Kwoten paid no heed to this, but said "You are a beautiful woman," and went and lay with her. Then Terkosh went away to her hill at Poni, where she is now, ​and to this day the Kurumbas go there once a year and offer plantains to her, and light lamps in her honour."
It is further recorded by Dr. Rivers that "two ceremonial objects are obtained by the Todas from the Kurumbas. One is the tall pole called tadrsi or tadri, which is used in the dance at the second funeral ceremonies, and afterwards burnt. Poles of the proper length are said to grow only on the Malabar side of the Nīlgiris, and are probably most easily obtained from
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I am informed that, among the Kurumbas of the Nīlgiris, it is the custom for several brothers to take one wife in common (adelphogamy), and that they do not object to their women being open to others also. There is said to be no marriage rite. A man and woman will mate together, and live as husband and wife. And, if it happens that, in a family, there has been a succession of such wives for one or two generations, it becomes an event, and is celebrated as such. The pair sit together, and pour water over each other from pots. They then put on new cloths, and a feast is partaken of. Among the Shōla Nāyakkars, a feature of the marriage ceremony is said to be for the bride to roll a cheroot of tobacco leaves, which both parties must smoke in turn.
Writing concerning the Irulas and Kurumbas, Mr.Walhouse says* that "after every death among them, they bring a long water-worn stone (devva kotta kallu), and put it into one of the old cromlechs sprinkled over the Nīlgiri plateau. Some of the larger of these have been found piled up to the cap-stone with such pebbles, which must have been the work of generations. Occasionally, too, the tribes mentioned make small cromlechs for burial purposes, and place the long water-worn pebbles in them. Mr. Breeks reports that the Kurumbas in the neighbourhood of the Rangasvāmi peak and Barliar burn their dead, and place a bone and a small round stone in the sāvu-mane (death-house) — an old cromlech." The conjecture is hazarded by Fergusson † that the Kurumbas are the remnant of a great and widely ​spread race, who may have erected dolmens. As bearing on the connection between Kurumbas and Kurubas, it is worthy of note that the latter, in some places, erect dolmens as a resting-place for the dead. (See Kuruba.)
It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris, that the Kurumbas "trade largely on the extraordinary dread of their supposed magical powers which possesses the Todas and the Badagas — the latter especially. Stories are told of how they can summon wild elephants at will, and reduce rocks to powder merely by scattering mystic herbs upon them."
"The Kurumbas," Harkness writes, "have a knowledge of herbs and medicinal roots, and the Burghers (Badagas) say that they limit their knowledge thereof to those which are noxious only, and believe that, with the assistance of their magic, they are able to convey them into the stomachs of those to whom they have any dislike. The violent antipathy existing between the Burghers and the Kurumbas, and the dread and horror which the former entertain of the preternatural powers of the latter, are, perhaps, not easily accounted for; but neither sickness, death, nor misfortune of any kind, ever visit the former, without the latter having the credit of producing it. A few years before, a Burgher had been hanged by the sentence of the provincial court for the murder of a Kurumba. The act of the former was not without what was considered great provocation. Disease had attacked the inhabitants of the hamlet, a murrain their cattle. The former had carried off a great part of the family of the murderer, and he himself had but narrowly escaped its effects. No one in the neighbourhood doubted that the Kurumba in question had, by his necromancy, caused all this misfortune, and, after several fruitless attempts, a party of them succeeded in surrounding ​him in open day, and effecting their purpose." In 1835 no less than forty-eight Kurumbas were murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1900 a whole family of Kurumbas was murdered, of which the head, who had a reputation as a medicine-man, was believed to have brought disease and death into a Badaga village. The sympathies of the whole country-side were so strongly with the murderers that detection was made very difficult, and the persons charged were acquitted.* In this case several Todas were implicated. "It is," Mr. Grigg writes, "a curious fact that neither Kota, Irula, or Badaga will slay a Kurumba until a Toda has struck the first blow, but, as soon as his sanctity has been violated by a blow, they hasten to complete the murderous work, which the sacred hand of the Toda has begun." The Badaga's dread of the Kurumba is said to be so great that a simple threat of vengeance has proved fatal. My Toda guide — a stalwart representative of his tribe — expressed fear of walking from Ootacamund to Kotagiri, a distance of eighteen miles along a highroad, lest he should come to grief at the hands of Kurumbas; but this was really a frivolous excuse to get out of accompanying me to a distance from his domestic hearth. In like manner, Dr. Rivers records that, when he went to Kotagiri, a Toda who was to accompany him made a stipulation that he should be provided with a companion, as the Kurambas were very numerous in that part. In connection with the Toda legend of On, who created the buffaloes and the Todas, Dr. Rivers writes that "when On saw that his son was in Amnodr (the world of the dead), he did not like to leave him there alone, and decided to go away to the same place. So he called together all the ​people, and the buffaloes and the trees, to come and bid him farewell. All the people came except a man of Kwodrdoni named Arsankutan, He and his family did not come. All the buffaloes came except the Arsaiir, the buffaloes of the Kwodroni ti (sacred dairy). Some trees also failed to come. On blessed all the people, buffaloes and trees present, but said that, because Arsankutan had not come, he and his people should die by sorcery at the hands of the Kurumbas, and that, because the Arsaiir had not come, they should be killed by tigers, and that the trees which had not come should bear bitter fruit. Since that time the Todas have feared the Kurumbas, and buffaloes have been killed by tigers."
On the Nīlgiri hills, honey-combs are collected by Jēn Kurumbas and Shōlagas. The supply of honey varies according to the nature of the season, and is said to be especially plentiful and of good quality when Strobilanthes flowers.* The Kurumbas are said to have incredibly keen eye-sight, gained from constantly watching the bee to his hive. When they find a hive not quite ready to take, they place a couple of sticks in a certain position. This sign will prevent any other Kurumba from taking the honey, and no Badaga or other hillman would meddle with it on any account, for fear of being killed by sorcery.
Fortified by a liberal allowance of alcohol and tobacco, the Kurumbas, armed with bamboo torches, will follow up at night the tracks of a wounded 'bison' (Bos gaurus), and bring back the head and meat to camp. A European sportsman recounts that he has often seen his Kurumba shikāri (tracker) stop, and, with the one word " honey," point to the top of an adjacent tree. " How do ​you know?" he asked, "Oh! I saw a bee" was the answer given with the greatest nonchalance. On one occasion he found himself close to a swarm of bees. The Kurumba, seeing him hesitate, thrust his stick clean through the swarm, and, with the bare remark " No honey," marched on. The District Forest Officer, when out shooting, had an easy shot at a stag, and missed it. " There," said the Kurumba, pointing to a distant tree, "is your bullet." His trained sense of hearing no doubt enabled him to locate the sound of the bullet striking the tree, and his eyes, following the sound, instantly detected the slight blaze made by the bullet on the bark. The visual acuity of a number of tribes and castes inhabiting the mountains, jungles, and plains, has been determined by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers and myself, by means of the Cohn letter E method. And, though the jungle man, who has to search for his food and mark the tracks or traces of wild beasts, undoubtedly possesses a specially trained keenness of vision for the exigencies of his primitive life, our figures show that, as regards ordinary visual acuity, he has no advantage over the more highly civilised classes.
"The Kurumbas of the Mysore forests," Mr. Theobald writes, "make fire by friction. They follow the same method as the Todas, as described by Mr. Thurston, but never use the powdered charcoal in the cavity of the horizontal piece of wood which is held down by their feet, or by a companion. The fine brown powder, formed during the rotation of the longer vertical piece, gives sufficient tinder, which soon ignites, and is then placed on a small piece of cotton rag, rolled loosely, and gently blown until it is ignited. The vertical stick is held between the palms, and has a reciprocal motion, by the palms being moved in opposite directions, at the same ​time using a strong downward pressure, which naturally brings the palms to the bottom, when they are at once raised to their original position, and the operation continued till the naturally formed tinder ignites."
In his report on Forest Administration in Coorg, 1902-1903, Mr. C. D'A. McCarthy writes as follows concerning the Kurumbas, who work for the Forest department. "We experienced in connection with the Kurumbas one of those apparent aberrations of sense and intellect, the occurrence of which amongst this peculiar race was foreshadowed in the last report. The Chief Commissioner is aware that, in the interests of the Kurubas themselves, we substitute for a single cash payment distributions to the same value of food-grains, clothes and cash, in equal proportions of each. Now, seventy years ago, before the annexation of Coorg, the Kurubas and similar castes were prædial slaves of the dominant Coorgs, receiving no other remuneration for service than food and clothing. In fact, this institution, nothing less than real slavery, was not entirely broken up until the great demand for local labour created by the opening up of the country for coffee cultivation so late as 1860 — 1870, so that the existing generation are still cognisant of the old state of affairs. Last year, during the distribution of rewards for the successful protection of the reserves that season from fire, it seems that the idea was put into the heads of these people that our system of remuneration, which includes the distribution of food and clothing, was an attempt to create again at their expense a system of, as it were, forest slavery; with the result that for a time nothing would induce many of them to accept any form of remuneration for the work already performed, much less to undertake the same duties for the approaching season. It was someitime, and after ​no little trouble, that the wherefore of this strange conduct was discovered, and the suspicions aroused put at rest." In his report, 1904-1905, Mr. McCarthy states that "the local system of fire protection, consisting of the utilisation of the Kuruba jungle population for the clearing of fire lines and patrolling, and the payment of rewards according to results, may now be said to be completely established in Coorg. The Kurubas appear to have gained complete confidence in the working of the system, and, provided the superior officers personally see to the payment of the rewards, are evidently quite satisfied that the deductions for failures are just and fair."
The Kurumbas are said to have been very useful in the mining operations during the short life of the Wynād gold-mines. A few years ago, I received the skulls of two Kurumbas, who went after a porcupine into a deserted tunnel on the Glenrock Gold-mining Company's land in the Wynād. The roof fell in on them, and they were buried alive.
In a note on the 'Ethnogénie des Dravidiens',* Mr. Louis Lapicque writes as follows. "Les populations caractéristiques du Wainaad sont les Panyer, les négroides les plus accusés et les plus homogenes que j'ai vus, et probablement qui existent dans toute I'lnde. D'autre part, les tribus vivant de leur côté sur leurs propres cultures, fortement négroides' encore, mais plus mélangées. Tels sont les Naiker et les Kouroumbas."
| ——— | Indice nasal. | Indice Cephalique. | Taille. |
| 54 Panyer | 84 | 74 | 154 |
| 28 Kouroumbas | 81 | 75 | 157 |
| 12 Naiker | 80 | 76.9 | 157 |
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* ↑ * Manual of the Nilgiri district.
* ↑ * Mysore Census Report, 1901.
* ↑ • Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, 1807,
* ↑ * Asian, 1902.
* ↑ * Manual of the Nīlgiri district.
* ↑ * Aboriginal Race of the Neilgherry hills, 1832.
* ↑ • Ind. Ant., VI, 1877.
* ↑ † Rude Stone Monuments.
* ↑ * Police Admn. Report, 1900.
* ↑ • Agricult. Ledger Series, No. 47, 1904.
* ↑ * Comptes rendus des Séances de la Société de Biologic, T. LVIII, 1019.