Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/34

CHEMPAKARAMAN tedious and costly ritual, and the Brāhmans gave vent to their feelings of despair, when a vision from heaven reassured them, and thereafter the Chembōttis have been raised in the social scale, and are not regarded as a polluting caste."

Chembetti, or Chemmatti, meaning hammer, occurs as an exogamous sept of the Telugu Yānādis.  '''Chempakarāman. —''' Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, 1901, as an honorific title of Nāyars.  Chenchu.— The Chenchus or Chentsus are a Telugu-speaking jungle tribe inhabiting the hills of the Kurnool and Nellore districts. In a letter addressed to the Bengal Asiatic Society,* transmitting vocabularies of various tribes inhabiting Vizagapatam, by Mr. Newill, it is stated that "the Chenchu tribe, whose language is almost entirely corrupt Hindi and Urdu with a few exceptions from Bengāli, affords one more example to the many forthcoming of an uncultured aboriginal race having abandoned their own tongue." The compiler of the Kurnool Manual (1885) remarks that Mr. Newill's vocabulary " seems to belong to the dialect spoken by Lambādis, who sometimes wander about the hills, and it is not unlikely that he was misled as to the character of the persons from whom his list was taken." As examples of the words given by Mr. Newill, the following may be quoted: — It is probable that Mr. Newill confused the Chenchus with the Bonthuk Savaras (q.v.) who speak corrupt 