Part 21

The Ronas worship the deity Takurani. They wear the sacred thread, and are said to have bought the right to do so from a former Raja of Jeypore. They also wear a necklace of tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) beads. The necklace is first tied on by Oriya Brahmans from Orissa, or Vaishnava Brahmans from Srikurmam in Ganjam, who pay periodic visits to the community, and receive presents of money and food. Rona Paikos will eat at the hands of Brahmans only, whereas Puttiya Paikos will eat in the houses of Koronos, Malis, Kummaras, and Gaudos. All eat animal food, beef and pork excepted.

Some Ronas are still the armed retainers of the Jeypore Rajas, and their forefathers were versed in the use of the matchlock. Some Ronas at the present day use bows and arrows. The caste title is Nayako.

Ronguni.--The Rongunis are Oriya dyers and weavers. The caste name is derived from rangu, dye. A noticeable fact is that they do not eat flesh of any kind, but are vegetarians, pure and simple. They have various titles, e.g., Behara, Daso, Prushti, and Sahu, of which some practically constitute exogamous septs.

Rottala (bread).--An exogamous sept of Boya.

Rowthan.--See Ravutan.

Rudra.--One of the various names of Siva. A sub-division of Palli.

Rudrakshala (the drupe of Elæocarpus Ganitrus).--An exogamous sept of Karna Sales. The drupes are polished, and worn as a rosary or necklet by Saivite Brahmans, Pandarams, Nattukottai Chettis, and others. They are supposed to be the tears of ecstasy which Siva (Rudra) once shed, and are consequently sacred to him. They have a number of lobes (or faces), varying from one to six, divided externally by deep furrows. Those with five lobes are the most common, but those with one (eka mukha) or six (shan mukha) are very rare, and have been known to be sold for a thousand rupees. One form of the drupe is called Gauri shanka, and is worn in a golden receptacle by Dikshitar Brahmans at Chidambaram, and by some Pandarams who are managers of matams (religious institutions). The plate represents a Telugu Saivite Vaidiki Brahman clad in a coat of rudraksha beads, wearing a head-dress of the same, and holding in his hand wooden castanets, which are played as an accompaniment to his songs. Until he became too old to bear the weight, he wore also a loin-cloth made of these beads.

Runzu.--Runzu, Runza, or Runja is the name of a class of Telugu mendicants, who beat a drum called runjalu, and beg only from Kamsalas (q.v.).

S

Sachchari.--A synonym of Relli. Another form of the word Chachchadi.

Sadaru.--A sub-division of Lingayats, found mainly in the Bellary and Anantapur districts, where they are largely engaged in cultivation. Some Bedars or Boyas, who live amidst these Lingayats, call themselves Sadaru. It is noted in the Mysore Census Reports that the Sadas are "cultivators and traders in grain. A section of these Sadas has embraced Lingayatism, while the others are still within the pale of Hinduism."

Saddikudu (cold rice or food).--An exogamous sept of Golla.

Sadhana Surulu.--Sadhanasura is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a synonym of Samayamuvadu. In a note on this class of itinerant mendicants, Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao states that, unlike the Samayamuvaru, they are attached only to the Padma Sale section of the Sale caste. "They say," he writes, "that their name is an abbreviated form of Renuka Sakthini Sadhinchinavaru, i.e., those who conquered Renuka Sakthi. According to tradition, Renuka was the mother of Parasurama, one of the avatars of Vishnu, and is identified with the goddess Yellamma, whom the Padma Sales revere. The Sadhana Surulu are her votaries. Ages ago, it is said, they prayed to her on behalf of the Padma Sales, and made her grant boons to them. Since that time they have been treated with marked respect by the Padma Sales, who pay them annually four annas, and see to their marriages."

Sadhu (meek or quiet).--A sub-division or exogamous sept of Ganiga and Padma Sale. The equivalent Sadhumatam has been recorded, at times of census, by Janappans. The name Sadhu is applied to ascetics or Bairagis.

Sagarakula.--A synonym of the Upparas, who claim descent from a king Sagara Chakravarthi of the Mahabharata.

Sahavasi.--The Sahavasis are described, in the Mysore Census Report, 1891, as "immigrants like the Chitpavanas. Sahavasi means co-tenant or associate, and the name is said to have been earned by the community in the following manner. In remote times a certain Brahman came upon hidden treasure, but, to his amazement, the contents appeared in his eye to be all live scorpions. Out of curiosity, he hung one of them outside his house. A little while after, a woman of inferior caste, who was passing by the house, noticed it to be gold, and, upon her questioning him about it, the Brahman espoused her, and by her means was able to enjoy the treasure. He gave a feast in honour of his acquisition of wealth. He was subsequently outcasted for his mésalliance with the low caste female, while those that ate with him were put under a ban, and thus acquired the nickname."

Sahu.--A title of Bolasis, Godiyas, and other Oriya castes.

Saindla (belonging to the death-house).--A sub-division of Mala.

Sajjana (good men).--A synonym of Lingayat Ganigas.

Sajje (millet: Setaria italica).--An exogamous sept of Devanga.

Sakala.--See Tsakala.

Sakkereya.--Some Upparas style themselves Mel (western) Sakkereya-varu. Their explanation is that they used to work in salt, which is more essential than sugar, and that Mel Sakkare means superior sugar.

Sakuna Pakshi.--For the following note on the Sakuna Pakshi (prophetic bird) mendicant caste of Vizagapatam, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. The name of the caste is due to the fact that the members of the caste wear on their heads a plume composed of the feathers of a bird called palagumma, which is probably Coracias indica, the Indian roller, or "blue jay" of Europeans. This is one of the birds called sakuna pakshi, because they are supposed to possess the power of foretelling events, and on their movements many omens depend. Concerning the roller, Jerdon writes [128] that "it is sacred to Siva, who assumed its form, and, at the feast of the Dasserah at Nagpore, one or more used to be liberated by the Rajah, amidst the firing of cannon and musketry, at a grand parade attended by all the officers of the station. Buchanan Hamilton also states that, before the Durga Puja, the Hindus of Calcutta purchase one of these birds, and, at the time when they throw the image of Durga into the river, set it at liberty. It is considered propitious to see it on this day, and those who cannot afford to buy one discharge their matchlocks to put it on the wing."

According to their own account, the Sakuna Pakshis are Telagas who emigrated to Vizagapatam from Peddapuram in the Godavari district.

A member of the caste, before proceeding on a begging expedition, rises early, and has a cold meal. He then puts the Tengalai Vaishnava namam mark on his forehead, slings on his left shoulder a deer-skin pouch for the reception of the rice and other grain which will be given him as alms, and takes up his little drum (gilaka or damaraka) made of frog's skin. It is essential for a successful day's begging that he should first visit a Mala house or two, after which he begs from other castes, going from house to house.

The members combine with begging the professions of devil-dancer, sorcerer, and quack doctor. Their remedy for scorpion sting is well-known. It is the root of a plant called thella visari (scorpion antidote), which the Sakuna Pakshis carry about with them on their rounds. The root should be collected on a new-moon day which falls on a Sunday. On that day, the Sakuna Pakshi bathes, cuts off his loin-string, and goes stark naked to a selected spot, where he gathers the roots. If a supply thereof is required, and the necessary combination of moon and day is not forthcoming, the roots should be collected on a Sunday or Wednesday.

Salangukaran.--In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Salangaikaran is returned as a synonym of Karaiyan or Sembadavan fishermen. The word salangu or slangu is used for pearl fisheries, and Salangukaran is, I imagine, a name applied to pearl divers.

Salapu.--The Salapus are a small caste of Telugu weavers in Vizagapatam, for the following note on whom I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. The name Salapu seems to be a corruption of Saluppan, a caste which formerly engaged in the manufacture of gunny-bags and coarse cloths. The Salapus at the present day make such cloths, commonly called gamanchalu. Like some other weaving castes, they claim descent from Markandeya rishi, who was remarkable for his austerities and great age, and is also known as Dirghayus. The Salapus will not eat, or intermarry with Sales. The caste is governed by a headman called Senapati. He decides disputes, and, on occasions of marriage, receives the first share of betel and sandal, and is the first to touch the sathamanam (marriage badge) when it is passed round to be blessed by those assembled. He is, at marriages, further presented with a rupee. At caste feasts, it is his privilege to partake of food first.

Like other Telugu castes, the Salapus have intiperulu, or exogamous septs. Girls are generally married before puberty. The custom of menarikam, by which a man should marry his maternal uncle's daughter, is in force. The turmeric ceremony takes place some months before marriage. Some male and female relations of the future bridegroom repair to the house of the girl, taking with them a few rupees as the bride-price (voli). The girl bathes, and daubs herself with turmeric paste. A solid silver bangle is then put on her right wrist. The remarriage of widows and divorce are permitted.

The Salapus are divided into Lingavantas and Vaishnavas, who intermarry. The former bury their dead in a sitting posture, and the latter practice cremation. Jangams officiate for the Lingavantas, and Satanis for Vaishnavas. Both sections observe the chinna (little) and pedda rozu (big day) death ceremonies.

The caste title is generally Ayya.

Salapu.--A form of Sarapu, an occupational term for those who deal in coins, jewelry, coral, etc.

Sale.--The Sales are the great weaver class among the Telugus, for the following note on whom I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao.

The name is derived from Sanskrit, Salika, a weaver. The Sales call themselves Senapati (commander-in-chief), and this is further the title of the caste headman. They are divided into two main endogamous sections, Padma or lotus, and Pattu or silk. Between them there are three well-marked points of difference, viz., (1) the Pattu Sales wear the sacred thread, whereas the Padma Sales do not; (2) the Pattu Sales do not take food or water at the hands of any except Brahmans, whereas the Padma Sales will eat in Kapu, Golla, Telaga, Gavara, etc., houses; (3) the Pattu Sales weave superfine cloths, and, in some places, work in silk, whereas Padma Sales weave only coarse cloths. Each section is divided into a number of exogamous septs or intiperulu. Both speak Telugu, and are divided into Vaishnavites and Saivites. These religious distinctions are no bar to intermarriage and interdining.

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district (1907), that "on the plains, cotton cloths are woven in hundreds of villages by Sales, Padma Sales, Pattu Sales, Devangas, and Salapus. The ryots often spin their own cotton into thread, and then hand it over to the weavers to be made into cloths, but large quantities of machine-made yarn are used. In the south, the chief weaving centres are Nakkapalli and Payakaraopeta in Sarvasiddhi taluk, the Pattu Sales in the latter of which turn out fabrics of fine thread, enriched with much gold and silver 'lace,' which are in great demand in the Godavari and Ganjam districts. At Razam, coloured cloths for women are the chief product, and in the country round this place the white garments so universal everywhere give place to coloured dress. The cloths are sold locally, and also sent in large quantities to Berhampur, Cuttack, and even Calcutta. Most of the weaving is in the hands of Devangas, but the dyeing of the thread is done with imported aniline and alizarine colours by the Balijas of Sigadam in Chipurupalle taluk and Balijapeta in Bobbili. In Siripuram and Ponduru, the Pattu Sales make delicate fabrics from especially fine thread, called Pattu Sale nulu, or silk-weaver's thread, which the women of their caste spin for them, and which is as fine as imported 1508. These are much valued by well-to-do natives for their softness and durability. The weaving industry is on the decline throughout the district, except perhaps in Razam, and the weaver castes are taking to other means of livelihood. Round Chipurupalle, for example, the Pattu Sales have become experts in tobacco-curing, and have made such profits that they are able to monopolise much of the trade and money-lending of the locality."

Concerning the origin of the Sale caste, it is stated, in the Andhrapada Parijatamu, that it is the result of an union between a Kamsala man and a potter woman. According to a current legend, the celestials (devatas), being desirous of securing clothing for themselves and their dependents, asked Markandeya Rishi to supply them with it. He went to Vishnu, and prayed to him. The god directed him to make a sacrificial offering to Indra, the celestial king. Markandeya accordingly performed a great sacrifice, and from the fire issued Bhavana Rishi, with a ball of thread in his hands, which he had manufactured, under Vishnu's direction, from the fibre of the lotus which sprang from the god's navel. With this ball of thread he proceeded to make cloths for the celestials. He subsequently married Bhadravathi, the daughter of Surya (the sun), who bore him a hundred and one sons, of whom a hundred became the ancestors of the Padma Sales, while the remaining man was the ancestor of the Pattu Sales.

The caste worships Bhavana Rishi. At the close of the year, the caste occupation is stopped before the Sankramanam for ten days. Before they start work again, the Pattu Sales meet at an appointed spot, where they burn camphor, and wave it before a ball of thread, which represents Bhavana Rishi. A more elaborate rite is performed by the Padma Sales. They set apart a special day for the worship of the deified ancestor, and hold a caste feast. A special booth is erected, in which a ball of thread is placed. A caste-man acts as pujari (priest), and fruits, flowers, camphor, etc., are offered to the thread.

The Telugu Padma Sales, and Marathi-speaking Sukun and Suka Sales, are, as will be seen from the following table, short of stature, with high cephalic index:--

Stature. cm. Cephalic index.

Padma Sale 159.9 78.7 Suka Sale 161.1 81.8 Sukun Sale 160.3 82.2

The Padma and Karna Sales are dealt with in special articles.

Writing in the eighteenth century, Sonnerat remarks that the weaver fixes his loom under a tree before his house in the morning, and at night takes it home. And this observation holds good at the present day. Weaving operations, as they may be seen going on at weaving centres in many parts of Southern India, are thus described by Mr. H. A. Stuart. [129] "The process of weaving is very simple. The thread is first turned off upon a hand-spindle, and then the warp is formed. Bamboo sticks, 120 in number, are fixed upright in the ground, generally in the shade of a tope or grove, at a distance of a cubit from one another, and ten women or children, carrying ratnams (spindles) in their hands, walk up and down this line, one behind the other, intertwining the thread between the bamboos, until 1,920 threads of various colours, according to the pattern desired, are thus arranged. For this work each gets half an anna--a small remuneration for walking four miles. To form a warp sufficient for eight women's cloths, forty miles have thus to be traversed. In weaving silk cloths or the finer fabrics, the length of the warp is less than sixty yards. As soon as the threads have been arranged, the bamboos are plucked up, and rolled together with the threads upon them. Trestles are then set out in the tope, and upon them the warp with the bamboos is stretched horizontally, and sized by means of large long brushes with ragi starch, and carried along by two men. This having dried, the whole is rolled up, and placed in the loom in the weaver's house. The weaving room is a long, narrow, dark chamber, lighted by one small window close to where the workman sits. The loom is constructed on the simplest principles, and can be taken to pieces in a few minutes, forming a light load for a man. The alternate threads of the warp are raised and depressed, to receive the woof in the following manner. Two pairs of bamboos are joined together by thin twine loops, and, being suspended from the roof, are also joined to two pedals near the floor. Through the joining loops of one pair of bamboos run half the threads, and through those of the other run the other half. Thus, by depressing one pedal with the foot and raising the other, one set of threads is depressed, and the other raised so as to admit of the woof thread being shot across. This thread is forced home by a light beam suspended from the roof, and then, the position of the pedals being reversed, the woof thread is shot back again between the reversed threads of the warp. In this way about three yards can be woven in a day." Further Mr. J. D. Rees writes as follows. [130] "As you enter a weaver's grove, it appears at first sight as if those occupied in this industry were engaged in a pretty game. Rows of women walk up and down the shady aisles, each holding aloft in the left hand a spindle, and in the right a bamboo wand, through a hook at the end of which the thread is passed. Alongside are split bamboos reaching as high as their hips, and, as they pass, they unwind the thread from the spindle by means of the wand, and pass it over each alternate upright. The threads, thus separated, are subsequently lifted with their bamboo uprights from the ground, and, while extended from tree to tree in a horizontal position, are washed with rice-water, and carefully brushed. The threads are now ready to be made into cloth, and the actual weaving is carried on by means of primitive hand looms inside the houses."

Weavers, like many other classes in Southern India, are eminently conservative. Even so trifling an innovation as the introduction of a new arrangement for maintaining tension in the warp during the process of weaving gave rise a short time ago to a temporary strike among the hand-loom weavers at the Madras School of Arts.

For the following note on the weaving industry, I am indebted to Mr. A. Chatterton. "The hand-weavers may be divided into two great classes--(1) plain weavers, who weave cloths or fabrics with a single shuttle, which carries the weft from selvage to selvage; (2) bordered cloth weavers, who weave cloths in which the threads of the weft of the portion of the fabric forming the borders are distinct from the threads of the weft of the main body of the cloth. To manufacture these cloths, three shuttles are employed, and as yet no successful attempt has been made to imitate them on the power loom. The bordered cloth weavers do not suffer from the direct competition of machine-made piece-goods, and the depression in their branch of the industry is due to changes in the tastes of the people. [131] In the manufacture of a cloth from the raw material there are three distinct processes: spinning, warping, and weaving. Modern machinery has absolutely and completely ousted hand-spinning; the primitive native methods of warping have been to a large extent replaced by improved hand-machines, and power looms have displaced hand looms to some extent; but there is still an enormous hand-loom industry, some branches of which are in by no means an unsatisfactory condition. In our efforts to place the hand-weaving industry on a better footing, we are endeavouring to improve the primitive methods of indigenous weavers both in regard to warping and weaving. In respect to weaving we have met with considerable success, as we have demonstrated that the output of the fly-shuttle loom is fully double that of the native hand loom, and it is in consequence slowly making its way in the weaving centres of Southern India. In respect to warping, no definite solution has yet been effected, and we are still experimenting. The problem is complicated by the fact that the output of a warping mill must necessarily be sufficient to keep at least a hundred hand looms at work, and at the present time the hand-weaving industry is not organised on any basis, which gives promise of development into co-operative working on so large a scale as would give employment to this number of looms. In Madura, Coimbatore, Madras and Salem, attempts are being made to establish organised hand-loom weaving factories, and these represent the direction in which future development must take place. At present all these factories are running with fly-shuttle looms, and various modifications of the old types of hand-warping machinery. The only experiments in warping and sizing are now being conducted, at Government expense, in the Government weaving factory at Salem, and in a small factory established privately at Tondiarpet (Madras). A warping machinery, suited to Indian requirements, has been specially designed for us in England, and there is no doubt but that it will provide a solution to the warping question, but whether it will be satisfactory or not depends upon the efficiency of hank sizing. The superiority of native cloths is commonly attributed to the fact that they are made in hand looms, but in reality it is largely due to the methods of sizing employed by native weavers, and it is still doubtful whether we can attain the same results by any process which involves the production of continuous warps of indefinite length. The ordinary native warp is short, and it is stretched out to its full length in the street, and the size carefully and thoroughly brushed into it. The warps which our machines will produce may be thousands of yards in length, and, if they are successful, will almost entirely do away with the enormous waste of time involved in putting new warps into a loom at frequent intervals. That they will be successful in a sense there is no reasonable doubt, but whether the goods produced in our hand-weaving factories will be what are now known as hand-woven goods, or whether they will partake more of the nature of the power-loom productions, remains to be seen. With the cheap labour available in Southern India, there is probably a future for hand-weaving factories, but it will depend almost entirely upon the successful training of the weavers, and experience shows that they are not easily amenable to discipline, and have very rigid objections to anything approaching a factory system."