Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 8.djvu/132

IRULA MEN.—IRULA WOMEN. pay any attention to the land after it is sown, or, indeed, to its preparation further than partially clearing away the jungle and turning it up with the hoe, or what is more common, scratching it into furrows with a stick, and scattering the seed indiscriminately; their crops are, of course, stunted and meagre. When the corn is ripe, if at any distance from the village, the family to which the patch belongs will remove to it, and constructing temporary dwellings, remain there as long as the grain lasts. Each morning they pull up as much as they think they will require for that day, kindle a fire on the nearest large stone or fragment of rock, and when it is well heated brush away the embers and set the grain upon it, which soon becoming parched and dry, is thence rudely reduced to meal. This part of the process over, or as soon as the rock has cooled, the parched grain, which in the meantime has been partially cleansed from the husk, is with the assistance of a smaller stone rubbed into meal, mixed up with water, and made into cakes. The stone is now heated a second time, and the cakes are put on it to bake; or when they meet a stone which has a little concavity, they will, after heating it a second time, fill the hollow with water, with which when warmed, they mix up the meal and form a sort of porridge. In this way the whole of the family, their friends and neighbours, will live till the grain has been consumed; and it seems to be considered among them as superlative meanness to reserve any, either for seed or future nourishment. This period is a merry-making time; they invite all who may be passing by to partake of the produce of their field and join in their festivities. These families will now be invited to live on the fields of their neighbours, and when the whole of the grain of the village has thus been consumed, and this, at best, is generally but a small quantity, they have again to trust to the precarious subsistence which the produce of the forests or their gardens yield."

"In their own houses," Mr. Breeks observes, "they make no prayer or 'puja' of any kind; they will not work at any plantation of any sort on Mondays or Saturdays, though they will dig for roots; and they will not eat with any hill tribe except the Badagas. As far as I can ascertain, they have no marriage or birth ceremonies. There are no early betrothals. When a boy is of age, he chooses a wife for himself, and gives five or ten rupees to the girl’s father, and perhaps a glass bead necklace to the bride; but there is no tying on of the tali. They bury their dead, placing the body in a sitting posture in the grave, dance and play around the corpse, light a lamp, which they put inside, and block up the grave with wood and earth. They have no commemorative ceremony."

The Irulas belong to the Veddars or hunting people, whose expulsion from, or extermination in, the settled parts of India, is constantly recorded by traditions. Buchanan identifies the Eriliguras of Mysore with the Chensu, Chenju, or Chenji, existing in Kurnool and other districts, who seem to have been the most important