THE term slavery conveys different ideas when considered in connection with different nations. by whom it is practised. To a nation which is cold and strictly logical, which has “an unflinch- ing courage to meet the consequences of every premise which it lays down and to work out an accursed principle, with mathematical accuracy, to its most accursed results,” all the horrors of slavery so graphically and feelingly described by historians and writers of fiction may doubt- less appear to be true, and all the rules of the slave code that “reduces man from the high position of a free agent, a social, religious, accountable being, down to the condition of the brute or of inanimate matter,” may appear to be just. But to a nation that is “by constitution more impulsive, passionate, and poetic,” those rules may appear to be illegal, unjust, and even sinful. To Hindus, who are a nation of philosophers and abstract thinkers, who give only a secondary place to the practical side of things, and who are taught by their sacred writings not to cause the least injury to even the lowest of God’s creatures on pain of some dreadful punishment in a future state, slavery means a mild and perhaps an acceptable form of servitude. Hence it is that while in other countries philanthropists like Wilberforce and Theodore Parker have had to put down what has unhappily debased humanity for centuries, there exist in India even at the present day some traces of that kind of slavery which even in its worst days had no objectionable features in it. And this perhaps is owing to the peculiar characteristic of the country where agriculture forms the chief occupation of the people. In every village in Southern India will be found a parcherry in which live the pariahs, who in a way answer to the description of slaves in other countries.
In my previous papers, I described the persons living in the main group of buildings in Kélambakam. There is yet another group of buildings which is included in the village. It is smaller in size, and is at a distance of two or three furlongs from the main group. There are about thirty dwellings in this group, all of them thatched, and some so small that a foreigner might well stand aghast at the number of people living in them. They are built with no pre- tensions to order or arrangement, and each has a backyard in which are invariably to be seen tamarind, palmyra, coconut and other trees. During a good part of the year the thatched roofs are grown over with pumpkin and other vegetables, thus presenting a pleasing appear- ance. This group of dwellings is called the parcherry of Kélambakam, where the pariahs, the lowest class of people in Hindu society, live. There are about one hundred pariahs living here, and they are the servants of the land- owners of the village. They are paid in grain. Each pariah servant in Kélambakam is paid every month at the rate of six merkals of paddy, i.e., forty-eight measures. The average price of these forty-eight measures is between two and two and a half rupees (between four and five shillings). From this it will be seen that labour in South Indian villages is very cheap. For their low wages, the pariahs are required to be at their masters’ bidding from early morn till the close of day. They have to plough the lands, sow paddy, water the fields, weed them, sleep in the fields when the crops are ripe, reap and thrash the corn, and do a hundred other things.
Mayandi is the headman of the parcherry of Kélambakam, and he is about eighty years of age. He served under Kothundarama Moodelly’s father and grandfather. He has five sons, all grown-up men, serving under Kothundarama Moodelly and cultivating his fifty acres of land. When the pariahs have disputes to settle, they go to Mayandi for advice. Once in his youth- ful days some robbers entered the house of Kothundarama Moodelly’s father, and with a daring and courage that were very highly spoken of at the time the pariah encountered the robbers and dispersed them. While de- fending his master’s house from plunder, he received some very severe wounds. This incident he would relate to his sons and to the other pariahs of the village. He would show them with pride the scars on his body and ask them to follow his good example, to love their masters, and be faithful to them. Now the venerable figure of the old man may be seen in the streets of the village, and he gives glowing pictures of the days when rice was sold at twenty-four measures for one rupee, when living was cheap, when there were periodical rains, and when the lands of the village produced twice as much as they do now.
When the village is attacked with cholera, smallpox, and other pestilential diseases, the village munsiff and others in Kélambakam invariably consult old Mayandi and ask him how in former days the villagers who have passed away acted in such emergencies.
The pariahs serve the same family from generation to generation. They dare not accept service under other masters. Whenever marriages are performed in the master’s house, the pariah servant gets married at the same time. For instance, when the village headman, Kothundarama Moodelly, was married, two of Mayandi’s sons were also married. When a member of the master’s family dies, the pariah servant and his whole household must go into mourning, and on the sixteenth day, when the funeral ceremonies are performed and the relatives of the deceased bathe in a tank, the pariah and his people go through the ceremonies and bathe in the same tank, thus showing that they are as much interested in the matter as the master. When the pariah servant is to be married, the first thing he does is to go with all his people to the master’s house with fruit and flowers and obtain his permission for the marriage. When there are family disputes among the pariahs, masters are invariably consulted. From the above it will be seen that slavery in a mild form exists in Indian villages, and until quite recently what is called Muri Sittu (literally slavery agreement) was in vogue. But this practice of executing slavery agreements is happily fast dying out.
The pariahs are as a class hardworking, honest, and truthful. In watering the fields, in reaping the corn and in other things, they show that they are capable of very hard work. They begin at five in the morning and go on working without intermission till ten or eleven o’clock ; they begin again at three in the afternoon, and do not cease till six or seven in the evening. They are honest, and zealously guard the interests of their masters. Although during the harvesting time the masters may be absent, the pariahs will not appropriate to their own use one grain of corn or take any undue advantage of their masters’ absence. When the corn is ripe they sleep in the fields and honestly watch their masters’ property.
They are also truthful. Lately an incident took place in Kélambakam which illustrates very well this trait in their character. Our old Brahmin friend Appalacharri was constantly quarrelling with a neighbouring landowner whose lands were being gradually encroached upon. The good-natured villager patiently bore all the aggressive acts of the Brahmin, but he was so persistently and continually harassed that he one day lost his temper and abused the Brahmin. There were present at the time two pariah servants of the villager, and Appalacharri, who was keen enough to know the truthful character of the pariahs, filed a criminal complaint against his opponent and cited the two pariahs as his witnesses. They spoke the truth and thus deposed against their own master. The poor man was punished, and Appalacharri went away successful.
The valluvars are the people who officiate as priests among pariahs during marriages and funerals. These people take pride in the fact that Tiruvailuvar, the reputed author of the celebrated Kural, was a valluvar. The valluvar of the pariahs of Kélambakam lives in a neighbouring village, and his name is Krishnan. He officiates as their priest on marriage and funeral occasions and gets a small fee for his services. He knows a little of astrology, and practises medicine in a rude form. Some years ago he was brought up before a court of sessions and was convicted for causing abortion to a woman of ill-repute.
Such are the illiterate pariahs, a unique class of men, whose pure lives and noble traits of character are in every way worthy of admiration, and whose occupation invests them with considerable importance in India, which is essentially an agricultural country.
The person next claiming our attention is Lakshmanan, the chuckler. He is entitled to the hides of the animals which. die in the village. He prepares leather in a rough sort of way, and makes shoes, drums, &c., for the people. Lakshmanan owns an acre of land in the village which he cultivates, besides attending to his business of supplying the villagers with leather whenever they require it.
Balan, the villee of Kélambakam is a very interesting person. He reminds us of the naked savages of whom we often read in histories. He lives with his wife and children in a small hut at the distance of a mile from the village. He gathers honey, roots, medicinal herbs and other forest produce, which he takes to the village and exchanges for grain. He has acquired some reputation as a snake- charmer, and people from the surrounding villages go to him for scorpion and snake bites.
The marriage customs of the villee people are very curious. The bride and bridegroom sit in an open plain on a low wooden seat, surrounded by a number of their caste men. The old men among them present the couple with new clothes, and then at the appointed hour, amidst the vociferous shouting of those assembled, the bridegroom ties round the neck of the bride a string of black beads. The married persons then go round the wooden seat a number of times, after which the marriage is said to be completed. The people then sit together to eat, drink, and be merry. The name of their deity is Valleeammai, and at night a number of people join together and praise their deity in language which sounds very curious and which baffles even the most learned philologist. The villee people live mostly on leaves and roots.
Ponny is the name of the korathy, who goes about the villages selling mats and baskets, and, as she is also a tattooer, she might often be seen in Kélambakam offering her services for a small fee. Hindu females are very fond of having their bodies tattooed, and Ponny consequently carries on a successful trade. The korathy first makes a sketch of the figure of a scorpion or a serpent on the part of the body offered to her for tattooing, then takes a number of sharp needles, dips them in some liquid preparation which she has ready, and pricks the flesh most mercilessly. In a few days the whole appears green. This is con- sidered a mark of beauty among the Hindus. While the tattooing takes place, the korathy sings a crude song so as to make the person undergoing the process forget the pain. The following is as nearly as possible a translation of the song which I myself heard.
THE KORATHY’S LULLABY.
Stay, darling, stay—’tis only for an hour, And you will be the fairest of the fair. Your lotus eyes can soothe the savage beast, Your lips are like the newly blossomed rose, Your teeth—they shine like pearls ; but what are they Before the beauties of my handiwork ?
Stay, darling, stay—’tis only for an hour, And you will be the fairest of the fair. I’ve left my home and all day hard I toil So to adorn the maidens of the land That erring husbands may return to them ; Such are the beauties of my handiwork.
Stay, darling, stay—’tis only for an hour, And you will be the fairest of the fair. In days of old fair Seeta laid her head Upon the lap of one of our own clan, When with her lord she wandered in the wilds And like the emerald shone her beauteous arms.
Stay, darling, stay—’tis only for an hour, And you will be the fairest of the fair. And often in the wilds, so it is said, She also of the Pandus went in quest Of one of us, but found not even one, And sighed she was not like her sisters blest.
Stay, darling, stay—’tis only for an hour, And you will be the fairest of the fair. My work is done ; rejoice, for you will be The fairest of your sisters in the land. Rejoice for evermore, among them you Will shine as doth the moon among the stars.