# Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Dommara

​Dommara. — The Dommaras are a tribe of tumblers, athletes, and mountebanks, some of whom wander about the country, while others have settled down as agricultural labourers, or make combs out of the wood of Elœodendron glaucum, Ixora parviflora, Pavetta indica, Ficus bengalensis, etc., which they sell to wholesale merchants. They are, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,* "a nomad class of acrobats, who, in many respects, recall the gipsies to mind, and raise the suggestion that their name may possibly be connected with the Dōms of Northern India. They speak Telugu, Marāthi, and Hindustani, but not generally Tamil. They are skilful jugglers, and both men and women are very clever tumblers and tight-rope dancers, exhibiting their feats as they travel about the country. Some of them sell date mats and baskets, some trade in pigs, while others, settled in villages, cultivate lands. In social position they rank just above the Pariahs and Mādigas. They profess to be Vaishnavites [and Saivites]. Infant marriage is not practiced. Widow remarriage is freely allowed, and polygamy is common. Their marriage tie is very loose, and their women often practice prostitution. They are a predatory class, great drunkards, and of most dissolute habits. The dead are generally buried, and [on the day of the final death ceremonies] cooked rice is thrown out to be eaten by crows. In the matter of food, they eat all sorts of animals, including pigs, cats, and ​crows." When a friend was engaged in making experiments in connection with snake venom, some Dommaras asked for permission to unbury the corpses of snakes and mungooses for the purpose of food.
The Dommaras are, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, summed up as being buffoons, tumblers, acrobats, and snakecharmers, who travel from place to place, and earn a precarious living by their exhibitions. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Domban, Kalaikūttādi (pole-dancer), and Ārya Kūttādi, are given as synonyms of Dommara. The Kūttāadi are summed up, in the Tanjore Manual, as vagabond dancers, actors, pantomimists, and marionette exhibitors, who hold a very low position in the social scale, and always perform in public streets and bazaars.
By Mr. F. S. Mullaly * the Dommaras are divided into Reddi or Kāpu {i.e., cultivators) and Āray (Marātha). "The women," he writes, "are proficient in making combs of horn and wood, and implements used by weavers. These they hawk about from place to place, to supplement the profits they derive from their exhibitions of gymnastic feats. In addition to performing conjuring tricks, rope-dancing and the like, the Dommaras hunt, fish, make mats, and rear donkeys and pigs. The head of the tribe is called the Mutli Guru. He is their high priest, and exercises supreme jurisdiction over them both in spiritual and temporal matters. His head-quarters is Chitvēl in the Cuddapah district. The legend regarding the office of the Mutli Guru is as follows. At Chitvēl, or as it was then known Mutli, there once lived a king, who called together a gathering of all the gymnasts among his subjects. Several classes were represented. ​Pōlērigādu, a Reddi Dommara, so pleased the king that he was presented with a ring, and a royal edict was passed that the wearer of the ring and his descendants should be the head of the Dommara class. The ring then given is said to be the same that is now worn by the head of the tribe at Chitvēl, which bears an inscription in Telugu declaring that the wearer is the high-priest or guru of all the Dommaras. The office is hereditary. The dwellings of the Dommaras are somewhat similar to those of the Koravars and Joghis, made of palmyra leaves plaited into mats with seven strands. These huts, or gudisays, are located on the outskirts of villages, and carried on the backs of donkeys when on the march. Stolen cloths, unless of value, are not as a rule sold, but concealed in the packs of their donkeys, and after a time worn. The Dommaras are addicted to dacoity, robbery, burglary, and thefts. The instrument used by them is unlike those used by other criminal classes: it is of iron, about a foot long, and with a chisel-shaped point. As cattle and sheep lifters they are expert, and they have their regular receivers at most of the cattle fairs throughout the Presidency."
It is noted, in the Nellore Manual, that the Dommaras "are stated by the Nellore Tahsildar to possess mirāsi rights in some villages; that I take to mean that there is, in some villages, a customary contribution for tumblers and mendicants, which, according to Wilson, was made in Mysore the pretext for a tax named Dombar-lingada-vira-kaniki. This tax, under the name Dombar tafrik, was levied in Venkatagiri in 1801." In the Madura district, Dommaras are found in some villages formerly owned by zamindars, and they call themselves children of the zamindars, by whom they were probably patronised. ​Being a criminal class, the Dommaras have a thief's language of their own, of which the following are examples:—
| Bidam vadu, Dommara | Dāsa-masa, prostitute |
| Poothi, policeman | Kopparam, salt |
| Marigam, pig | Kaljodu, goldsmith. |
| Goparam, seven | |
The Dommaras are said to receive into their community children of other castes, and women of doubtful morals, and to practice the custom of making Basavis (dedicated prostitutes).
The Telugu Dommaras give as their gōtra Salava patchi. the name of a mythological bird. At times of marriage, they substitute a turmeric-dyed string consisting of 101 threads, called bondhu, for the golden tāli or bottu. The marriage ceremonies of the Ārē Dommaras are supervised by an old Basavi woman, and the golden marriage badge is tied round the bride's neck by a Basavi.
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At Tarikēri in Mysore, a wandering troupe of Ārē (Marātha) Dommaras performed before me. The women were decorated with jewels and flowers, and carried bells on their ankles. The men had a row of bells attached all round the lower edge of their short drawers. Before the performance commenced, a Pillayar (Ganēsa) was made with cowdung, and saluted. The entertainment took place in the open air amid the beating of drums, whistling, singing, and dialogue. The jests and antics of the equivalent of the circus clown were a source of much joy to the throng of villagers who collected to witness the tamāsha (spectacle). One of the principal performers, in the waits between his turns, played the drum, or took a suck at a hooka (tobacco pipe) which was passed round among the members of the troupe. The entertainment, in which both men and women took part, consisted of various acrobatic feats, turning summer-saults and Catherine wheels, stilt-walking, and clever feats on the tight rope. Finally a man, climbing up a lofty bamboo pole, spun himself rapidly round and round on the top of it by means of a socket in an iron plate tied to his loin cloth, into which a spike in the pole fitted.
* ↑ • Madras Census Report, 1891; Manual of the North Arcot district.
* ↑ * Notes on the Criminal Classes of the Madras Presidency.