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52. CUDDAPAH

CHAPTER III.

THE PEOPLE.

The Census ~ Density and growth of the population—Deficiency of females—Language—Education-- Occupations —Religions. The Christians—the Roman Catholic Mission—The London Mission—-The S,).G, Mission—The Lutheran Mission. The Musalmans—Their relations with Hindus. Tae Hindus—Villages —- Houses — Dress—Food —Amusements, Reiigious Lire—The Village Deities—Peculiar religious practices and superstitions. Social Life—The more numerous castes—Tribes—Beggars.

FOR purposes of the decennial census Cuddapah district forms part of the Deccan division and in regard 1o its population exhibits in itself all the more striking peculiarities which are characteristic of the whole.

First in importance is the sparseness of its population. Its mean density per square mile is only a little more than half that shown for the whole Presidency. Conditions of life in Cuddapah district are in fact such as to prevent anything but a scanty population and a slow rate of increase. Less than six percent. of the cultivated area is grown with rice and the ryot, whether he lives on the cholam that he raises on his own land or buys his food with the price of his cotton, requires a greater acreage for his livelihood than the southern cultivator. The climate moreover is inclement to the idle or physically weak, and the position of the district in the heart of the famine zone occasionally entails violent set-backs to what may be regarded as the normal rate of increase in the population. Thus in the ten years ending with 1901 we find a positive decrease in the population by over two and a half thousand, largely attributable to the famines of 1892 and 1897. The statistics of the following decade, which affords no instances of similar acute distress, furnish a truer criterion of the normal movement of population in the district, which is represented during this period by an increase of 16 per cent.; though it is

2 The census of 1911 gives the total population of the district as 893,998. �