Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/476

YAKARI Yākāri.— See Ekāri.  Yānādi.— The Yānādis are a dark-skinned, platyrhine tribe, short of stature, who inhabit the Telugu country. The name has been the subject of much etymological speculation. Some derive it from a (privative) and nathu (lord or protector), and it may mean those who are not included in the ruling or principal caste. Again, it has been derived from yanam (boat) and adi (means). But the Yānādis are not known to have plied, nor do they now ply boats at Srīharikota, their chief place of residence, which is on the coast. The word would seem to be derived from the Sanskrit anadi, or those whose origin is not traceable. The people perhaps elongated the vowel-sound, so that it became Yānādi. In like manner, the Native graduate of the Madras University talks of himself as being, not a B.A. or M.A., but B.Ya. or M.Ya. And a billiard- marker will call the game yeighty-yeight instead of eighty-eight.

The tradition of the Yānādis as to their origin is very vague. Some call themselves the original inhabitants of the wilds in the neighbourhood of the Pulicat lake, where they hunted and fished at will, until they were enslaved by the Reddis. Others say that the Reddi (or Manchi?) Yānādis were originally Chenchus, a small but superior class, and that they fled from oppression and violence from the mountains in the west, and amalgamated themselves with the common Yānādis. The common deity of both Chenchus and Manchi Yānādis is Chenchu Dēvudu. Between the Yānādi and the Chenchu, however, there is no love lost. They can be seen living close together, but not intermingling, on the Nallamalais, and they differ in their social customs. Yānādi Chenchu is said to be the name given by 