Yerukala
This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India
By R. V. Russell
Of The Indian Civil Service
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.
NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from a book. During scanning some errors are bound to occur. Some letters get garbled. Footnotes get inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot errors might like to correct them, and shift footnotes gone astray to their rightful place.
Yerukala
A vagrant gipsy tribe of Madras of whom a small number are returned from the Chanda District. They live by thieving, begging, fortune-telling and making baskets, and are usually treated as identical with the Koravas or Kuravas, who have the same occupations. Both speak a corrupt Tamil, and the Yeriikalas are said to call one another Kurru or Kura. It has been supposed that Korava was the Tamil name which in the Telugu country became Yerukalavandlu or fortune-teller. Mr. (Sir H.) Stewart thought there could be no doubt of the identity of the two castes,^ though Mr. Francis points out differences 1 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xxii. p. 212. - Madras Census Report (1891).
between them.^ The Yerukalas arc expert thieves.
They frequent villai^es on the pretence of begging, and rob by clay in regular groups under a female leader, who is known as Jemadarin. Each gang is provided with a bunch of ke}'s and picklocks. They locate a locked house in an unfrequented lane, and one of them stands in front as if begging ; the remainder are posted as watchers in the vicinity, and the Jemadarin picks the lock and enters the house. When the leader comes out with the booty she locks the door and they all walk away.
If any one comes up while the leader is in the house the woman at the door engages him in conversation by some device, such as producing a silver coin and asking 'if it is good. She then begins to dispute, and laying hold of him calls out to her comrades that the man has abused her or been taking liberties with her. The others run up and jostle him away from the door, and while they are all occupied with the quarrel the thief escapes. Or an old woman goes from house to house pretending to be a fortune-teller.
When she finds a woman at home alone, she flatters and astonishes her by relating the chief events in her life, how many children she has, how many more are coming, and so on. When the woman of the house is satisfied that the fortuneteller has supernatural powers, she allows the witch to cover her face with her robe, and shuts her eyes while the fortuneteller breathes on them, and blows into her ears and sits muttering charms.
Meanwhile one or two of the latter's friends who have been lurking close by walk into the house and carry away whatever they can lay their hands on. When they have left the house the woman's face is uncovered and the fortune-teller takes her fee and departs, leaving her dupe to find out that her house has been robbed."' The conjugal morals of these people are equally low. They sell or pledge their wives and unmarried daughters, and will take them back on the redemption of the pledge with any children born in the interval, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. When a man is sentenced to imprisonment his wife selects another partner for the period
- Afadras Census Report (1901).
2 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xxi. pp. 170, 17 1.
of her husband's absence, going back to him on his release with all her children, who are considered as his. Mr. Thurston gives the following story of a gang of Koravas or Yerukalas in Tinnevelly : " One morning, in Tinnevelly, while the butler in a missionary's house was attending to his duties, an individual turned up with a fine fowl for sale. The butler, finding that he could purchase it for about half the real price, bought it, and showed it to his wife with no small pride in his ability in making a bargain. But he was distinctly crestfallen when his wife pointed out that it was his own bird, which had been lost on the previous night.
The seller was a Korava." ^ In Madras they have also now developed into expert railway thieves. They have few restrictions as to food, eating cats and mice, though not dogs.^ The Yerukalas practised the custom of the Couvade as described by the Rev. John Cain, of Dumagudem:^ "Directly the woman feels the birth-pangs she informs her husband, who immediately takes some of her clothes, puts them on, places on his forehead the mark which the women usually place on theirs, retires into a dark room where there is only a very dim lamp, and lies down on the bed, covering himself up with a long cloth. When the child is born it is washed and placed on the cot beside the father.
Asafoetida, jaggery and other articles are then given, not to the mother but to the father. During the days of ceremonial impurity the man is treated as other Hindus treat their women on such occasions. He is not allowed to leave his bed, but has everything needful brought to him. " The Yerukalas marry when quite young. At the birth of a daughter the father of an unmarried little boy often brings a rupee and ties it in the cloth of the father of a newly-born girl. When the girl is grown up he can then claim her for his son."
