Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/203

Rh fear of the white man, which they entertained when I first came into the district; but even now, if I visit the village of a colony who reside in the primæval forest, the women and children will hide themselves in the jungle at sight of me. The superstitions of the two tribes are different. Some Nāyakas are credited with the power of changing themselves at will into a tiger, and of wreaking vengeance on their enemies in that guise. And the Kurumba holds the Nāyaka in as much awe as other castes hold the Kurumba. Lower down, on the flat below the ghats I am opening a rubber estate, and here I have another Nāyaka colony, who differ in many respects from their congeners above, although the two colonies are within five miles as the crow flies. The low-country Nāyaka does his hair in a knot on one side of his head, Malayālam fashion, and his speech is a patois of Malayalam. The Nāyaka on the hills above has a mop of curly hair, and speaks a dialect of his own quite distinct from the Kurumba language, though both are derived from Kanarese. But that the low-country people are merely a sept of the Nāyaka tribe is evident from the fact that intermarriage is common amongst the two colonies, and that they meet at the same temple for their annual pūja. The priest of the hill colony is the pūjāri for both divisions of the Nāyakas, and the arbiter in all their disputes."  Kurumo.— The Kurumos are a caste of Oriya agriculturists, found mainly in the Russellkonda tāluk of Ganjam. They are called Kurumo by Oriyas, and Kudumo by Telugus. There is a tradition that their name is derived from Srikurmam in the Vizagapatam district, where they officiated as priests in the Siva temple, and whence they were driven northward. The Kurumos say that, at the present day, some members 