Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6 of 7Thurston, Edgar
History
Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6 of 7
Thurston, Edgar
Caste -- India, South; Ethnology -- India, South; India, South -- Social life and customs; Tribes -- India, South
It is recorded by Mr. Ramamurti Pantulu that, when children are
seriously ill and become emaciated, offerings are made to monkeys and
blood-suckers (lizards), not in the belief that illness is caused by
them, but because the sick child, in its emaciated state, resembles
an attenuated figure of these animals. Accordingly, a blood-sucker
is captured, small toy arrows are tied round its body, and a piece of
cloth is tied on its head. Some drops of liquor are then poured into
its mouth, and it is set at liberty. In negotiating with a monkey,
some rice and other articles of food are placed in small baskets,
called tanurjal, which are suspended from branches of trees in the
jungle. The Savaras frequently attend the markets or fairs held
in the plains at the foot of the ghats to purchase salt and other
luxuries. If a Savara is taken ill at the market or on his return
thence, he attributes the illness to a spirit of the market called
Biradi Sonum. The bulls, which carry the goods of the Hindu merchants
to the market, are supposed to convey this spirit. In propitiating
it, the Savara makes an image of a bull in straw, and, taking it
out of his village, leaves it on the foot-path after a pig has been
sacrificed to it.
"Each group of Savaras," Mr. Ramamurti writes, "is under the government
of two chiefs, one of whom is the Gomong (or great man) and the other,
his colleague in council, is the Boya, who not only discharges, in
conjunction with the Gomong, the duties of magistrate, but also holds
the office of high priest. The offices of these two functionaries are
hereditary, and the rule of primogeniture regulates succession, subject
to the principle that incapable individuals should be excluded. The
presence of these two officers is absolutely necessary on occasions
of marriages and funerals, as well as at harvest festivals. Sales
and mortgages of land and liquor-yielding trees, partition and
other dispositions of property, and divorces are effected in the
council of village elders, presided over by the Gomong and Boya, by
means of long and tedious proceedings involving various religious
ceremonies. All cases of a civil and criminal nature are heard
and disposed of by them. Fines are imposed as a punishment for all
sorts of offences. These invariably consist of liquor and cattle,
the quantity of liquor and the number of animals varying according
to the nature of the offence. The murder of a woman is considered
more heinous than the murder of a man, as woman, being capable of
multiplying the race, is the more useful. A thief, while in the
act of stealing, may be shot dead. It is always the man, and not
the woman, that is punished for adultery. Oaths are administered,
and ordeals prescribed. Until forty or fifty years ago, it is said
that the Savara magistrate had jurisdiction in murder cases. He
was the highest tribunal in the village, the only arbitrator in
all transactions among the villagers. And, if any differences arose
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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