Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/487

Rh as the Korava, our doubt regarding the identity of the Korava with the Yerukala will be disposed of if we can establish the fact that the Korcha and the Yerukala are the same. The Rev. J. Cain, writing* about the Yerukalas of the Godāvari district, states that "among themselves they call each other Kuluvāru, but the Telugu people call them Erakavāru or Erakalavāru, and this name has been derived from the Telugu word eruka, which means knowledge or acquaintance, as they are great fortune-tellers."

According to Balfour,† the Koravas, or a certain section of them, i.e., the Kunchi Koravas, were known as Yerkal Koravar, and they called the language they spoke Yerkal. The same authority,writing of the Yerkalwadu, alludes to them as kurshiwanloo, and goes on to say that they style themselves Yerkal, and give the same appellation to the language in which they hold communication. The word Yerkal here undoubtedly stands for Yerukala, and Kurshi for Korcha. It is evident from this, supported by authorities such as Wilson, Campbell, Brown and Shortt, what the doubt mentioned by the Census superintendent in regard to the identity of the Yerukala and Korava had not arisen when the Cyclopaedia of India was published, and it is the subsequent reports of later investigators that are responsible for it. The divergencies of practices reported must be reckoned with, and accounted for. They may be due to local customs existing in widely separated areas. It is contended that the Koravas and Yerukalas do not intermarry or eat together. A Korava, who has made a permanent home in a village in the south, if asked whether he would marry a Yerukala, would most