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A Christian Caste in Hindu Society: Religious Leadership and Social Conflict among the Paravas of Southern Tamilnadu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

S. B. Kaufmann
S. B. Kaufmann
Affiliation:
Clare Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

Since the nineteenth century scholars have depicted Indian castes as timeless, fixed communities whose customs, rituals, and occupational specialities evolved at an unidentifiable point in the distant past. It has now been shown, however, that many jatis are of relatively recent origin, and historians have been able to trace the economic, political, and religious changes which acted to form individual caste groups during the colonial period. Several recent works on south India have argued that the agglomerations of artisans and cultivators described as castes in British ethnographies and Census reports had no real cohesion and were often no more than unstable political alliances or ‘administrative fictions’. In this view it was the misconceived European notion of castes as rigid, competing corporations which stimulated the formation of many south Indian castes after 1880.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 1981 , pp. 203 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

Abbreviations: BOR, Board of Revenue; JT, Jati Thalavan (Parava caste headman); MMA, Madura Mission Archives (Archives of the Jesuit missions in southern Tamilnadu, located at Sacred Heart College, Shembaganur, Madura District); PCD, Parava Caste Documents collection, Tuticorin; TCR, Tirunelveli Collectorate Records; TNA, Tamil Nadu Archives, Madras. I am grateful to the Managers of the Smuts Memorial Fund, the Worts Travelling Scholars Fund, the Cambridge Historical Society, and to New Hall, Cambridge whose generous grants enabled me to carry out research in India during 1976 and 1977.Google Scholar

1 See, for example, Conlon, Frank F., A Caste in a Changing World: The Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmans, 1700–1935, (Berkeley, 1977).Google Scholar

2 Washbrook, David, ‘The Development of Caste Organisation in South India 1880 to 1925’, in Baker, C. J. and Washbrook, D. A. (eds), South India: Political Institutions and Political Change 1880–1940 (Delhi, 1975), pp. 150–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 On the Padroado Real (royal patronage), which gave Portugal the right to control Roman Catholic churches overseas,Google Scholar see Boxer, C. R., The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825 (London, 1969), pp. 228–33.Google Scholar

4 Washbrook, , ‘The Development of Caste Organisation’, pp. 150–75;Google ScholarThurston, Edgar, Castes and Tribes of Southern India (Madras, 1909), VI, pp. 333–4.Google Scholar

5 Steuart, James, An Account of the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon (Colombo, 1843);Google ScholarHornell, James, The Indian Pearl Fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar and Palk Bay. Madras Fisheries Bureau, Bulletin xvi (Madras, 1922);Google ScholarArunachalam, S., The History of the Pearl Fishery of the Tamil Coast (Annamalsainagar, 1952).Google Scholar

6 Washbrook, D. A., The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Madras Presidency 1870–1920 (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 64–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 The treatment of ‘honours systems’ in this paper is based on Appadurai, Arjun and Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai, ‘The south Indian temple: authority, honour and redistribution’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 10: 2 (n.s.) (1976), 187–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Small groups of Paravas had also settled in inland market centres such as Alvartirunageri and Pettai by the 1650s. [Fr. A. Caussanel, S. J.] ‘Historical Notes—Tinnevelly District’ MS, n.d. [1925?], pp. 21–37, MMA.Google Scholar

9 Figures compiled from Pate, H. R., Tinnevelly, vol. I, Madras District Gazetteers (Madras, 1917), p. 121; Madras Catholic Directory for 1875, 1890, 1896;Google ScholarFrVerdier, L., Sj. ‘Mémoire sur la caste des Paravers’, report dated Palamcottah, 1860 (typescript copy) in Letires de la nouvelle mission du Maduré (bound vols) I, pp. 83–110, MMA.Google Scholar

10 Motha, Stephen C., A Short History of the Jathithalaimai or the Chieftainship of the Bharathars (Tuticorin, n.d. [1926?]). Bharatha[r] is a common English variant of Parava.Google Scholar

11 De Silva, C. R., ‘The Portuguese and Pearl Fishing off South India and Sri Lanka’, South Asia I:I (n.s.) (1978), 14–28;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPate, , Tinnevelly, pp. 230–1;Google ScholarBartoli, Daniello, Dell'istoria della Compagnia di Gesù L'Asia. 3 vols (Milano, 1831), I, p. 49. On the Paravas' conversion,Google Scholar see Schurhammer, Georg, Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times, vol. II., India 1541–1545 (trans. Costelloe, M. J.) Rome, (1977), pp. 260–6;Google ScholarCaldwell, R., A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevelly (Madras, 1881), p. 1881), p. 68;Google ScholarChitty, Simon Casie, ‘Remarks on the Origin and History of the parawas’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, IV (1837), p. 132.Google Scholar

12 Milestones in Bharatha Progress: A Brief History of the Conference MovementPublished on the Occasion of the Ninth Bharatha Conference held on the 7, 8 and 9 January 1938Colombo1938 p. 3.Google Scholar

13 Senhor, Senhor is an abbreviated form of senhor dos Senhores, ‘principal among the notables’. A complete listing of Parava jati thalavans with their dates of office is given in Motha, , Jathithalaimai.Google Scholar

14 Some other Tamil groups use these terms. For derivations see Raghavan, M. D., The Karava of Ceylon: Society and Culture (Colombo, 1961), p. 31; Parathan (Parava caste association journal), Colombo, 1936, p. 2.Google Scholar

15 This collection of some 500 Tamil, Dutch, French, and English manuscripts is designated here PCD. They include reports on the operation of the pearl fisheries as well as letters to and from the jati thalavan on social, religious, and financial matters. Most are dated between 1850 and 1935, but there are also pearling records and sanads confirming the succession of caste notables dating from c. 1750. The Paravas' Christian barbers and Hindu washermen performed functions analagous to those of Hindu service communities, carrying caste insignia in processions and playing an important part in marriage, birth, puberty, and death rituals. In the nineteenth century the Paravas also had at least two regional assemblies (nattus) which met at regular intervals to deal with religious and commercial matters affecting specified groups of Parava villages.Google Scholar

16 Schurhammer, , Francis Xavier, II, pp. 300–10;Google ScholarColeridge, H. J. (ed.), The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, 2 vols (London, 1881), I, pp. 151–87.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., pp. 151–3; Schurhammer, , Francis Xavier, II, pp. 308–9.Google ScholarThe Paravas' distinctive Portuguese names date from this period. They still use Christian forenames roughly translated into Tamil (Susai for Joseph, Suroni for Jerome, Xaverimuthu for Xavier, etc.) Their Portuguese surnames (Fernando, Roche, Miranda, deRose, Costa, etc.) mark off exogamous descent groups within the jati.Google Scholar

18 Throughout the colonial period families of Parava caste notables claimed an ancestral connection with St Francis. For example, one important lineage still believe that they are descendants of a Goan catechist who accompanied St Francis to Tirunelveli, while their detractors insist that this figure was really only the saint's cook and body servant. Many of the Paravas' St Francis legends originated as Hindu folk traditions. Near Manapad there is a shrine in a cave said to have been inhabited by the saint, but local Hindus had long venerated the cave as the birthplace of a deified hero (virulu). The ease with which Roman Catholic beliefs fused with existing folk traditions was one of the Padroado's great strengths in building up Christian identity among south Indian converts.Google Scholar See Villavarayan, J. M., The Diocese of Kottar. A Review of its Growth (Nagercoil, 1956), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

19 E.g. Edward, Swarnam (ed.), Pandiya Vamsa Parambarai (Tamil) (Madurai, 1911);Google ScholarDirectory of the Diocese of Tuticorin. Golden Jubilee Souvenir (1923–1973) (Tamil) (Tuticorin, 1973), pp. 10–18.Google Scholar

20 Bertrand, J., Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré, 2 vols (Paris, 1865), II, p. 24.Google Scholar

21 The name derives from the original church of Our Lady of Snows, a fourth-century Roman basilica built on the site of a miraculous mid-summer fall of snow. The August festival of Our Lady of Snows commemorates this event.Google ScholarGomez, J. M. Ladislaus, Pictorial Souvenir of the Golden Car of Our Lady of Snows Tuticorin (Tuticorin, 1969), pp. 7–11.Google Scholar

22 1947 Our Lady of Snows Festival Souvenir Volume (Tuticorin, 1947).Google Scholar

23 Appadurai, and Breckenridge, , ‘The south Indian temple’, p. 197;Google ScholarMackenzie, J. S.F., ‘Caste Insignia’, The Indian Antiquary, IV: xlviii (1875), 344–6;Google ScholarReiniche, Marie-Louise, Les dieux et les hommes. Étude des cultes d'un village du Tirunelueli Inde du sud (Paris, 1979), p. 96;Google ScholarBéteille, André, ‘Social Organization of Temples in a Tanjore Village’, History of Religions, 5: 1 (1965), 90–1;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBeck, Brenda E. F., Peasant Society in Konku. A Study of Right and Left Subcastes in South India (Vancouver, 1972), p. 79.Google Scholar

24 Gomez, , Pictorial Souvenir, p. 83.Google Scholar

25 The vast 75-foot ter or Golden Car in use today was built in 1806 with funds provided by the jati thalavan and other wealthy Paravas.Google ScholarDiaz, S. M., 1977 Golden Car Festival Souvenir (Tuticorin, 1977).Google ScholarAt present the drawing of the ter takes place every 13 years during the August feast of Our Lady of Snows. The festival attracts crowds of over 50,000. Church functionaries adorn the chariot with imported gold leaf, garlands, and statues of saints, with the figure of the Virgin enthroned at the top. At the climax of the celebration, ecstatic devotees seize cables attached to the ter and drag it for hours through the streets of the town (Observed during a visit to the festival in August, 1977.)Google Scholar

26 On Hindu festival rites see Clothey, F., ‘Skanda-Sasti: A Festival in Tamil India’, History of Religions 8:3 (1969), 246–7;CrossRefGoogle ScholarReiniche, , Les dieux et les hommes, pp. 100–11; Appadurai and Breckenridge, ‘The south Indian temple’, pp. 194–5. The Jesuit missionary Robert de Nobili (1577–1656) pioneered the technique of adapting Hindu vocabulary, symbols, and observances for use by south Indian converts.Google Scholar See Rajamanickam, S., The First Oriental Scholar (Tirunelveli, 1972);Google ScholarTiliander, Bror, Christian and Hindu Terminology: A Study of their Mutual Relations with Special Reference to the Tamil Area (Uppsala, 1974), pp. 27–9, 57, 107, 183, 216–24, 283–6.Google Scholar

27 1947 Our Lady of Snows Festival Souvenir Volume. The tradition of Parava honours at Tiruccentur is also cited in an edition of the Tamil folk epic Shenbagaraamam Pallu(composed c. 1630–85) published by a Parava caste historian in 1947.Google Scholar See Kaalingaraayar, M. J. (ed.), Shenbagaraamam Pallu (Tamil) 2nd edn (Nagercoil), pp. 4, 30–1.Google ScholarThe famous goddess shrine at Kaniyakumari is another reference point for the group.Even today the only obviously non-Christian names still used by the Paravas are Villavarayan, Poobalarayan and Rayan (derived from arayan, a caste name for several Hindu fishing groups). The three titles are said to designate the descendants of families who held prestigious ‘honours’ at Kaniyakumari before the Paravas' conversion to Christianity. Interviews, Kaniyakumari, September 1977.Google Scholar

28 This ‘kingly’ honour was typically held by warrior-chiefs such as the Tamil poligars. In the nineteenth century a descendant of one of the poligar lineages, the raja of Ettiapuram, gave the first pull to the ter at the Kalugumalai temple in his zamindari in eastern Tirunelveli. Interviews, Tirunelveli, August 1977.Google Scholar

29 Appadurai, and Breckenridge, , ‘The south Indian temple’, pp. 194–5. The Paravas' banners and ceremonial regalia, including a sunshade, bronze shield, and silk umbrella, can still be seen in the home of thejati thalavan's descendants, the Mothas of Tuticorin. I am extremely grateful to them for access to the regalia and Parava caste documents.Google Scholar

30 Tuticorin (estimated population 3,000 in 1664) became the principal Dutch entrepôt on the southeast coast. Nieuhoff, John, Voyages and Travels into Brazil and the East Indies, in A. and Churchill, J. (eds), A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1704), II, p. 293; Pate, Tinnevelly, pp. 442–4.Google Scholar

31 TCR vol. 7968/110/30 August 1839/TNA;Google ScholarNieuhoff, , Voyages and Travels, II, p. 295;Google ScholarHornell, James, The Sacred Chank of India. Madras Fisheries Bureau, Bulletin No. 7 (Madras, 1914), pp. 8–12.Google ScholarAn MS sanad in Dutch, dated 9 June 1799 and signed by the Dutch governor of Ceylon, confirms the succession of the jati thalavan: PCD. On the endorsement of Parava village notables by the Dutch, see Motha, , Jathithalaimai, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

32 Mejaikarar (from Tam. mejai: table) suggests persons entitled to dine at the headman's table, hence those of the same ritual standing as the jati thalavan. Verdier's ‘Mémoire’ states: ‘Les nobles [mejaikarar] seuls ont le droit d'asseoir a la table où le chef [jad thalavan] prend son festin.’ See Chitty, , ‘History of the Parawas’, pp. 133–4; Pate, , Tinnevelly, p. 123. The terms are used primarily in Tuticorin, but all Parava settlements observed the same distinction between ritually inferior fishermen and superior trading families (from whom village adapans, sitalis, and pattangattis were drawn).Google Scholar

33 Trade in Tuticorin increased ten-fold in sixty years. The town's population was about 4,300in 1839; 10,500in 1871; 16, 300in 1881;25, l00 in 1891;28,000in 1901;and 40,200 in 1911. TCR vol. 7968/158/19 April 1839/TNA; Census of India 1911, vol.XII,. Pt II, PP.8–14; TCR vol. 7976/85/11 April 1848/TNA; TCR vol. 7973/244/5 November 1845/TNA; Pate, , Tinnevelly, PP. 20, 447–8.Google Scholar

34 Pate, , Tinnevelly, p. 447.Google Scholar

35 TCR vol. 7968/158/19 December 1839/TNA; TCR vol. 4717/Extr. Proceedings Madras BOR/13 April 1835/TNA; TCR vol. 7958/728/13 September 1839/TNA; TCR vol. 7979/130/23 July 1852/TNA.Google Scholar

36 Lettres des nouvelles missions du Maduré, 2 vols (Lyons, 1839–1840), I, p. 195.Google Scholar

37 Pate, , Tinnevelly, p. 449;Google ScholarHornell, James, ‘Report on the Feasibility of Operating Deep-Sea Fishing Boats on the Coasts of the Madras Presidency…’, Madras Fishery Investigations 1908 (Madras, 1910), p. 50.Google Scholar

38 Ibid..

39 TCR vol. 7968/62/15 May 1839/TNA; TCR VOl. 3595/ 122–3/12 March 1818/TNA; TCR vol. 7958/31/15 April 1840/ TNA; TCR vol. 7967/52/13 April 1837/TNA;Google ScholarThomas, M. A., A Report on the Pearl Fisheries and Chank Fisheries, 1884 (Madras, 1884);Google ScholarSteuart, , The Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon, pp. 10, 90.Google Scholar The Madras authorities were so scrupulous in preserving the Paravas' customary institutions that they continued the practice of paying a daily wage to the group's hereditary shark charmers, whose incantations were deemed to be essential to the divers' safety. Ibid., pp. 14, 95. There are English sanads dated 1808, 1856, 1889, and 1926 confirming the succession of new jati thalavans: PCD.

40 Calculated from figures in TCR vol. 7968/158/19 December 1839/TNA.Google Scholar

41 Verdier, ‘Mémoire’.Google Scholar

42 See Guchen, Denis, Cinquante ans au Maduré: 1837–1887. Ricils et souvenirs, 2 vols (Trichinopoly, 1887–1889);Google ScholarJean, A., Le Maduré, l'ancienne et la nouvelle mission, 2 vols (Lille, 1894).Google Scholar

43 Verdier, ‘Mémoire’; JT to Bp. Mylapore (fragment)/23–6–1903/PCD; Motha, , Jathithalaimai; Bertrand, Lettres, I, pp. 60, 164.Google Scholar

44 Lettres des nouvelles missions du Maduré, I, pp. 200–5; II, pp. 26–7; Verdier, ‘Mémoire’.Google Scholar

45 Verdier, ‘Mémoire’.Google Scholar

46 On FrFernandes, L. X., the first ordained Parava,Google Scholar see Pereira, J. E. A., Rev. Fr. L. X. Fernandes: An Appreciation (Madras, 1936).Google Scholar

47 Even though priests performed these necessary services, their parishioners did not hesitate to defy and even assault their Goan and European missionaries in the course of local disputes. Priests were often treated as retainers whose importance derived from their role in sustaining the communicant's ritual status. This view of the priest as a functionary was closer to the Hindu conception of the pujari than to the orthodox Catholic view of the priest as a figure of absolute spiritual authority.Google Scholar

48 Verdier, ‘Mémoire’.Google Scholar

49 The battle between Padroado and Jesuit authorities is traced in the Madras Catholic Expositor, May 1846, April–September 1847, April–June 1849.Google Scholar

50 Verdier, ‘Mémoire’.Google Scholar

51 Fr Francis Xavier Costa (Goan priest based in Periyatalei) to Collector, copy of petition dated 24 June 1847, PCD; Lettres de la nouvelle mission du Maduré, vol. I.Google Scholar

52 Ibid.; Guchen, Cinquante ans, I, pp. 199–215; Alexis Canoz, ‘Mémoire sur l'état actuel de la mission du Maduré—1850: origine de la mission—obstacles suscités par le schisme’ (n.d.) Typescript copy of original report, MMA.

53 ‘The south Indian temple’, pp. 191–4.Google Scholar

54 Beck, Brenda E. F., ‘The symbolic merger of body, space, and cosmos in Hindu Tamil Nadu’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 10:2 (n.s.) 1976, pp. 219–26, 237–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 JT to Head Asst. Collector, Tuticorin (MS draft), 1873 (date incomplete)/PCD; and Extract Proceedings of the Tuticorin Municipal Commissioner, 5 April 1873, copy in PCD.Google Scholar

56 Recounted by the ‘Special Committee of Padroado Christians’ (Carvalho, M. J., Victoria, J. A. D. et al. ) in a printed memorial to the Bp. Mylapore, 7 October 1928, p. 4/PCD.Google Scholar

57 After the failure of the suit the jati thalavan and Padroado authorities built their own wall around the Periyakovil. The Jesuits' protégés lost a High Court appeal demanding that the wall be torn down. In May 1877 the same group of protégés staged a religious procession along a route provocatively close to the Periyakovil, and fierce rioting broke out when the celebrants tried to force their way into the church compound. Madras High Court Suit 574/1876, quoted in MS draft letter from ‘Parava Padroado Christians, Tuticorin’ to Bp. Mylapore, 1 June 1894 (?)/PCD; Lettres de la nouvelle mission du Maduré, vol. I.Google Scholar

58 Gomez, , Pictorial Souvenir, p. v;Google ScholarGuchen, , Cinquante ans, I, p. 49.Google Scholar

59 de Silva, K. M., History of Ceylon (Peradeniya, vol. III, pp. 89–118.Google Scholar

60 One leading adapan lineage from Manapad, the Mirandas, entered the Ceylon commercial system in the lifetime of Miranda, J. M. S. (1855–1911) who had been a small-scale dealer hawking piece-goods around the coastal villages. He then married into the family of S. S. Fernando, a Manapad Parava who had just started a commercial venture in Ceylon. By 1900 their textile importing concern was one of the most successful Parava businesses. They and other prosperous Manapad grocers, liquor importers, and piece-goods dealers returned from Ceylon to build the showy European-style houses for which Manapad is famous in Tirunelveli. Interviews, Manapad and Tuticorin, August-September 1977.Google Scholar

61 Interviews with the Roche-Victoria family, Tuticorin, August 1977.Google Scholar

62 JT to Collector, Tuticorin, 24 July 1889/PCD; ‘The Bharathars of Tuticorin, 24 July 1889/PCD; ‘The Bharathars of Tuticorin’ to Jesuit authorities, printed memorial, 29 September 1891/PCD.Google Scholar

63 Ibid.

64 JT to Bp. Mylapore (MS draft), 1 June 1894/PCD.Google Scholar

65 For example, 13 families in Kadaladai defied an order from the jati thalavan forbidding them to market their fish and refused to pay their kanikkai dues, declaring ‘those who wish to honour the jati thalavan in such a way might do so, but others need not—it is no longer compulsory.’ Thommai Antony Fernando to JT, Kadaladai, 1891(date unclear)/PCD.Google Scholar

66 JT to Legate, Papal, Msgr. Zaleski, 23 October 1893/PCD; Michael Antony, kattalaikaran (Jesuit-nominated lay oflice-holder) of Alandalei, to JT, 3 July 1891/PCD.Google Scholar

67 JT to Zaleski, , 23 October 1893/PCD. In fact the Jesuits had been refusing to perform marriages and funerals for Paravas who used the jati thalavan's regalia.Google ScholarIbid.

68 Guchen, , Cinquante ans, I, p. 49;Google ScholarJT to Bp. Mylapore (fragment), Tuticorin, 15 May 1894/PCD.Google Scholar

69 JT to Bp. Mylapore, Ibid./PCD.

70 Ibid.

71 Less than a month after the riot, another outbreak occurred when a kamarakkarar family's marriage party tried to take the rival insignia into the Peryakovi1 compound. JT to Bp.Mylapore, 1 June 1894/PCD. The jati thalavan appealed to the local magistrate to prevent a similar clash in 1895. JT to joint Magistrate (MS draft), Tuticorin, 24 July 1895/PCD; ‘Tuticorin people’ toJT, n.d./PCD.Google Scholar

72 Adapan of Sippikulam to JT, to May 1895/PCD.Google Scholar

73 Fragment of MS letter to JT (village name obliterated) 11 October 1895/PCD. Similar challenges to the caste notables are described by ‘Villagers of Manapad’ to JT, 13 October 1894/PCD; Francisco Ignaci Leo, adapan of Manapad, , to JT, 5 August 1894/PCD;‘Villagers’ of Periyatalei to JT (date obliterated) /PCD.Google Scholar

74 Kitherian, Susai,pattangatti of Kutapuzhi, to JT, 17 August 1895/PCD.Google Scholar

75 Ibid.

76 Manapad caste notable (signature obliterated) to JT, 11 July 1896/PCD.Google Scholar

77 JT to Bp. Mylapore (MS draft), Tuticorin, July 1901/PCD.Google Scholar

78 Report included in Madras BOR Proceedings 2081/12 October 1900; and BOR Proceedings 534/22 August 1890/copies in PCD.Google Scholar

79 On the Paravas' unsuccessful attempts to form a single caste association (with a coherent policy toward traditional caste institutions) from their many localized caste sangams and sabhas, see Milestones in Bhartha Progress.Google Scholar

80 ‘Special Emergency Committee of Padroado Christians’ to JT (printed memorial), Colombo, 7 October 1928/PCD.Google Scholar

81 Information from interviews, Tuticorin, August 1977.Google Scholar

82 (Name obliterated) to JT, Pollikarai village, 30 November 1890/PCD.Google Scholar

83 Alandalei ‘labourers’ to JT, 19 January 1896/PCD.Google Scholar

84 Periatalei ‘villagers’ to JT, n.d. (1894?)/PCD.Google Scholar

85 JT to Zaleski, (MS draft), Tuticorin, 23 October 1893/PCD.Google Scholar

86 JT to Portuguese Ambassador (printed address), 4 February 1930/PCD.Google Scholar

87 Quoted in 1947 Our Lady of Snows Festival Souvenir Volume, p. 57.Google Scholar

88 A typical letter sets Out details ofa dispute over an inheritance of Rs 107 plus a small land-holding. Alandalei village notable to JT, 31 August 1891/PCD; and see similar reports from Alandalei (8 December 1893); and Moorkaiyur (29 November 1891)/PCD.Google Scholar

89 Fernando, Joseph to JT, 8 November 1891/PCD.Google Scholar

90 Suroni Pedar Poobalarayan to JT, 19 August 1894/PCD.Google Scholar

91 Marriott, McKim and Inden, Ronald, ‘Caste Systems’ in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, III, (1974), pp. 983–4.Google Scholar

92 Kollam Sinnakadai notables to JT, 1895 (date incomplete)/PCD.Google Scholar

93 Punnayakayal kattalaikaran to JT, 4 June 1894/PCD. In another case a Manapad woman bore an illegitimate daughter and then rejoined her trader husband in Colombo. The Manapad adapan appealed for a ruling on whether the daughter should be acknowledged as a member of the caste and whether she should receive the usual rites for Parava girls at puberty. Leo, Thomas Ignaci to JT, Colombo, 27 December 1891/PCD.Google Scholar

94 Sippikulam, sitatis to JT, 23–9–1891/PCD. Offenders were made to parade through the village wearing a crown of thorns or make their way around the village church on their knees. Reports to JT from Vaippar, 6 October 1891; Sippikulam, 23 September 1891/PCD.Google Scholar

95 Pallam village ‘elder’ to JT (damaged: 1891?), PCD.Google Scholar

96 After the outcasting of a fisherman from Pallam, the jati thalavan ordered one of the nattu assemblies to stop the marriage of the offender's daughter with a man from Alur.Google Scholar

97 Reports to the jati thalavan dated 31 May 1896; 27 May 1896/PCD.Google Scholar

98 A labourer who had migrated to Tuticorin appealed for a testimonial certifying his respectability and caste purity: his son's marriage to a girl from Uvari had been delayed by rumours that he was ‘of an indecent and very low family’. Petition to JT, Tuticorin, 6 May 1895/PCD. And a Manapad trader based in Ceylon applied to the jati thalavan for a formal certification of his standing as a ‘decent member of the Parava community’ so that his son could marry. 13 February 1895/PCD.Google Scholar

99 Washbrook, , The Emergence of Provincial Politics, pp. 68–85.Google Scholar

100 See Washbrook's, treatment of the Komatis, ‘Development of Caste Organisation’, p. 152.Google Scholar

101 For example, the sacristan of the Peryakovi1 acted as an intermediary for a Kutapuzhi man seeking a loan from the jati thalavan for a business enterprise in Ceylon. Sacristan to JT, 13 November 1894/PCD.Google Scholar

102 For example, the jati thalavan could press tindals and contractors to deny work to Parava migrants in Tuticorin who had violated caste discipline in their home villages. Periatalei caste notables to JT, 12 1891/PCD. Village notables also maintained their power to intervene in relations between boat owners and fishing crews. Adapans imposed caste sanctions on labourers who broke ties of service to boat owners, and could bar crewmen from serving owners or tindals who had committed offenses. Moorkaiyur sitati to JT, 5 July 1896/PCD; ‘Manapad villagers’ to JT, 5 August 1894/PCD.Google Scholar

103 Moduthome, Villavarayan to JT, Kaniyakumari, March 1892/PCD.Google Scholar

104 Ibid.Some other specialized groups including Hindu Shanars or Nadars (toddy tappers) and Kaikkilaiyar weavers operated similar mahimai levies. Pate, , Tinnevelly, p 104.Google Scholar

105 Representatives of western nattu to JT, July 1892 (date incomplete)/PCD; Punnaiyaur munsif to JT, 17 August 1893/PCD.Google Scholar

106 Punnayakayal, gramam munsif to JT, 19 August 1893/PCD.Google Scholar

107 Fernando, Manuel Packiam to JT village, date obliterated 1896?) PCD.Google Scholar

108 Thurston, , Castes and Tribes, VI, pp. 333–4; VII, pp. 259, 286–7;Google ScholarGovindan, V., Fishery Statistics and Information, West and East Coasts, Madras Presidency. Madras Fisheries Bureau Bulletin No. 9 (Madras, 1916), p. 133.Google Scholar

109 Govindan, Ibid., pp. 136–8.

110 Ibid., p. 139; Hornell, James, A Statistical Analysis of the Fishing Industry of Tuticorin (South India), Madras Fisheries Bureau, Bulletin No. 11.Rept.No. 3 (Madras, 1918), pp. 86–7.Google Scholar

111 Ibid.

112 Because Hindus regarded fish-handling as an unclean occupation like selling toddy (palm liquor), Paravas were drawn almost automatically into marketing their catches. It was then an obvious next step to other forms ofsmall-scale commerce: by 1845 Paravas comprised a substantial portion of the petty cloth and grain dealers and headload hawkers of south Tirunelveli. TCR vol. 7973/258/22 November 1845/TNA.Google Scholar

113 C. Twynam, Report on the Pearl Fishery of 1880; Ibid., 1881; 1887; (Colombo, 1880–1887), in E. L. Pawsey Papers, Box I, Archive Collection, Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge.

114 Hindus rarely abandon one set of rituals and beliefs in favour of ‘higher’ rites and doctrines, even on occasions when a lineage or caste group seeks to elevate its social standing by emulating the rites and customs of a higher ranking group. Instead they may recruit Brahmins to perform orthodox Vedic domestic rites for them, but the same group will still continue to worship blood-drinking local goddesses and malignant spirits (peys).Google Scholar See Babb, Lawrence A., The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India (New York, 1975), pp. 177, 212–14, 240–3.Google Scholar

115 This point is covered more fully in my Ph.D. dissertation ‘Popular Christianity, Caste, and Hindu Society in south India, 1800–1915: A Study of Travancore and Tirunelveli’ (University of Cambridge, 1979).Google Scholar