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The picturesque hilly regions in Wynad district and
Kannavam forest regions in Kannur district are the homeland of the
Kurichias known to be the original inhabitants of Malabar.
Probing into history, one
can see that the Kurichias were one of the freedom fighters in India.
They were the soldiers of Vir Pazhassi Raj, the king who ruled the
regions of Tellicherry and Wynad in northern Kerala. When the
historic battle between Pazhassi Raj and the British forces took
place on January 7, 1787, the Kurichia tribals took up arms under
their tribal leader Thalakkal Chandu. Their scrupulous and cunning
tactics in warfare had defeated the British several times. It is
said that they were adept at hitting a target with their arrows with
amazing accuracy.
According to a widely
prevalent belief among the Kurichia tribals, their ancestors were the
Nairs, a Hindu uppercaste community of Kerala.
Hundreds of years ago
Wynad was said to have been ruled by the Veda kings, the ancestors of
Mullakuruma tribals. One of the rulers of the Kottayam dynasty in
North Malabar defeated the Veda king and conquered Wynad. As the
Veda King’s armed forces were so powerful, the king of Kottayam
had to call up some excellent Nair soldiers from South Keralaq to
defeat the Vedas. After their victory the Nair soldiers returned to
their hamlets. However, the Nair soldiers were no longer acceptable
to their community because of their ‘pollution’ by their
contact with the tribals of Northern Kerala. These Nair soldiers
then returned to the king of Kottayam who rehabilitated them by
providing them houses and land in the jungle regions of Kannur and
Wynad. They then came to be known as “Kurichia tribals”.
Kurichias are strictly
endogamous people. They continue restriction in their social
contacts with other tribals, who according to them are inferior.
According to late Dr. A.
Aiyappan, the eminent Indian anthropologist, Kurichias are committed
to the matrilineal system supported by a myth. Once upon a time a
tiger approached an old Kurichia tribal chief with a request for a
Kurichia bride. The tiger threatened to kill at the Kurichias if his
request was not fulfilled. The old man first asked his daughters who
were all reluctant. He then put the same request to his sister’s
daughter and one of them agreed. The tiger turned out to be a prince
in disguise. The old man drove away his daughters and declared his
niece his heiress.
The Kurichias believe
that their genetic relationship to their sisters and sister’s
children more powerful. That is why Kurichias transfer proprietory
rights to their nieces and nephews rather than to their sons and
daughters.
A matrilineal dwelling
place is called mittam which is a group of several huts
clustered together. Every mittam has an Odayakkaran (tribal
head) whose decisions are said to be final. Every mittam will also
have a joint property where male and female members of all families
work together. In regard to marriage and birth, decisions of the
tribal head are authoritative. Marriage with other tribals and
non-tribals is taboo and those breaking this rule are ostracized.
Love marriages are uncommon and under the system of arranged
marriage, the proposal comes from the bridegroom’s party. The
girl is called by her uncle to reside in his home at least one month
before the marriage. On the day of the marriage the groom with his
uncle and other relatives come to the uncle’s hut where the
rituals take place. The groom ties a thali around the bride’s
neck. A feast follows and by evening the ceremony is over. Unlike
other tribals in Wynad, Kurichias have no entertainment like dance
and songs during the marriage ceremony by evening, the groom takes
his bride home. Before the bride puts her right foot on the
threshold of her new home, she washes her feet after which,
accompanied by some women, she enters the verandah and sits before an
oil lamp. The groom’s uncle offers rice, sandal and tulsi
leaves which she passes on to her husband.
Women are given
sufficient aegis especially during their prenatal and postnatal
periods. When the child completes 6 months, he is named and some of
the names found among Kurichia men are Kelu, Chanduy, Chappan and
Achappan and among women, Theyi, Ammini, Korumbi, Mathi and Ammu. A
girl who attains her puberty is given a warm welcome by the tribal
members with a celebration.
Kurichias, like other
Wynad adivasis bury their dead in a pit which normally measures 66
feet by 3 feet with a depth of 5 feet. After about 14 days, the
tribal chief performs some rites for the departed soul. All
relatives are invited and are given a feast on the occasion.
Kurichias call their ancestral spirit nizhal which literally
means ‘shadow’. They worship several deities such as
Malakkari, Malon, Karimbil Bhagavathy, Athiralan Theyyam in which the
most prominent is the first named. The Kurichias also feel that
Malakkari protects them from evil spirits while Karambil Bhagavathi
comes to the safety of the pregnant, mothers and children. Athiralen
Theyyam protects their cultivation. They, too, take part in the
traditional Thira festival which is held by non-tribal Hindus.
Twenty-two songs have
been detected from amongst the Kurichias. Kumpapattu is in
praise of their deity, Malakkari – Lord Shiva – while
Naripattu are verses that highlight their traditional life as
hunters. All other songs are about the chivalry of their ancestors
on the battle field.
Modern civilization has
made its impact on the lifestyle of the Kurichias. Today many of the
men have cropped hair instead of allowing it to grow to be tied on
the left side of their head.
Since 1991 a coaching
camp in modern archery for 30 Kurichia youths – 18 male and 12
female – has been conducted at the Ambedkar Model Residential
School, Wynad, by the State government. This camp is held every year
form April 22 to May 21 and is supervised by trained coaches from the
State Archery Association, Sports Authority of India. The aim of
this camp is to find talent from among the tribals so as to help them
gain position in national and international competitions.
Kurichias treat all
illnesses with wild herbs. Tribal healers can cure various kinds of
headaches, jaundice, asthma, stomach ache, scabies dysentery etc. As
per the proposal of kirtads (Tribal Research Institute in
Kozhikode), the State government started a Centre for Tribal Medicine
on 15 September 1993 at the tribal hamlet of Valat in Wynad with
Kolichal Achappan as the chief healer along with other Kurichia
healers. The patients, an average of 200 a day, come from various
parts of Kerala and are given medicine free. Ten tribal youths in
the age group of 18 to 30 are now attending a one year certificate
course. They re taught buy 25 tribal healers from 5 different tribal
communities viz., Kurichia, Paniya, Adiya, Kathunaikka and Kuruma.
THE SYRIAN CONNECTION
Syrian Christian is an
umbrella term used for any Christian living in Kerala. They could be
Latin Catholics such as the Syrian Christians who went over to the
Pope after the advent of the Portuguese or Latin Christians who are
mostly fishermen who were converted much later. The only common
factor is that they all come under the Pope. The liturgy or language
used for the church service varies from Latin to Syriac to Malayalam.
Then there are the
Jacobites who belong to the Orthodox Church or Eastern Church which
prides itself on being older than the Church of Rome. It was at
Antrioch (now in Turkey) that the disciples were first called
Christians. The language that the earliest missionaries used to
spread their message through the continent of Asia was Syriac, a
dialect of Eastern Aramaic and so closest to the language that Christ
himself must have used. Of these were two factions, the Patriach’s
side that owed allegiance to the Patrianch of Antioch and the
Malankara Orthodox Church. All of them are known as Jacobites. As
far as I could make out, they held their services in Syriac.
I was introduced to a
group that claimed to be a part of the Mar Thoma Church. Some time
in the last century there was a reform in the Jacobite Church.
Possibly because of the influence of the Protestant missionaries.
There was a movement of rebellion and reform. From this came the Mar
Thoma Church, a mixture of Protestant and Jacobite, that conducts its
service in Malayalam.
Quite apart form this an
Anglican Church started by British missionaries and the sect calling
themselves Nestorian Christians who have small congregations at
Thrissur, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram. In some ways one can
compare the Christians to the Parsis. Like the Parsis, they are an
ethnic religious group within the Indian social frame who have
retained their identity and absorbed the flavour of their
surroundings. They have strong affiliations to the place of their
birth yet they look Westwards for the spiritual spark that gives them
their special status. Whereas the Parsis came as a persecuted
people, as perhaps some groups of Syrian Christians in the 9th
century, the majority of Syrian Christians are of native stock.
The Syrian Christian
tradition is that St. Thomas, one of the original disciples of
Christ, came to India in 522 AD. He was known as Doubting Thomas
because legend has it that he could not believe his eyes when he saw
the risen Christ and touched one of Christ’s wounds to convince
himself. He was shocked to find that it still bled. It is said that
when Thomas landed at Musiris, which everyone believes to be the
sleepy hamlet believes to be the sleepy hamlet of Kodungallur, a
Jewish girl playing a flute was there to welcome him. The ties
between this stretch of the Kerala coast and those of the Middle East
go back to the time of Solomon who used to send his ships to trade in
the wealth of the ancient spice coast. St. Thomas may have taken the
overland route across the Palghat gap in the Western Ghats to find
his way to Mylapore or Meliapore as the Greeks would have it, a
suburb of Madras where the elegant Cathedral of San Thome stands
serenely with the sea and sky as the backdrop. The cave on St.
Thomas Mount, where he was murdered stills stands and no airborne
visitor to Madras can miss this landmark on an otherwise flat plain.
The next important person
to make his mark on the Christian landscape of Kerala was Thomas
Cana. A merchant, he came with a large number of men, women, and
children in the middle of the fourth century AD. from Babylon,
Nineveh and Baghdad. The details are shrouded in controversy but in
the Persian city of Isfahan, there are written documents that speak
of a connection between the Christians of this city and a king of
South India. Cana’s descendants in Kerala are distinguished by
the fairness of their complexion, a distinction that they tried to
preserve by not marrying out of the community. The Knanyi Thomas’s
as they are known were again divided into a northern faction and
southern faction based on those who were the immediate descendants of
Thomas Cana and who lived around him and those who were his followers
who lived a little to the south of the leader’s house.
Thomas of Cana was
apparently received with full honours by Cheruman Perumal, the
reigning king of Chera country. Among the various marks of favour
that would signal their status was the right to carry a royal
umbrella. This would seem a neglible honour but in Kerala where the
rain lashes the countryside with indiscriminate fury, it was a very
practical one. More lasting than any of the royal tokens of favour
that Cherumal Perumal granted them was the right to trade. Since
Kerala at that time had no merchant class, the Christians filled the
role quite well although they had occasionally to fight the Jews and
Arabs for the pepper monopoly. The extraordinary thing about the
Syrian Christians, is that they have never been interested in
conversion. It was something that the Western Christians were never
able to understand. This trait could have contributed to the Syrian
Christian’s ability to survive through so many centuries without
being assimilated.
It is quite extraordinary
to listen tot eh sonorous chanting of the priest in the Mar Thomas
church reciting the prayers in front of the simple wooden Cross
before him while a helper swings a globe shaped censor with the heavy
fragrance of burning camphor. The long drawn out ululations of the
priest could well be as old as those that were heard in Antioch,
Alexandria or even Constantinople. But he is in fact reciting the
prayers in Malayalam, as indeed are the responses of the congregation
as they stand up to sing their hymns in their mother tongue, ending
with “Allehluhias”. It was quite extraordinary listening
to Indian voices reciting prayers in an Indian language and yet
hearing echoes that went far back into the vaulted dome of time.
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