MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRE DISTRICT. 



209 



CHAP. IX, 

 PART III. 



Ethnology. 



In one of the Mackenzie MSS. they are spoken of as "a 

 wild people who cared not for their lives ;" but we are also told 

 that they were " shejiherds, weavers, lime sellers, traders/' and 



that the Kings of Chola and Pandya made war upon them. The 



wildness of this people has pi-obably been greatly exaggerated by 

 the more timid races of the plain country of the south. A people 

 who built fortresses, who traded by sea and land, who manufactured 

 goods and cultivated gardens, could not have been wild and 

 uncivilized, though they may have been fierce and vindictive as 

 Arab traders now are. This fierceness was their safety. Finally, 

 the kingdom of the Kurumbas, known as Kiirumba bhumi, with its 

 twenty-four forts, which seems to have become very extensive, 

 occupying the track of the Carnatic between the Penuar and 

 Palar and extending inland as far as the Western Ghats, was 

 overthrown by Adondai, the illegitimate son of Kulattungi Chola, 

 and the conquered country went henceforth by the name of 

 Tondamandalam. Their power probably survived longest in 

 North Karnata and in the Southern Hills of that ancient country. 

 It was probably from the dry uplands of Karnata, so well suited 

 for the pastarag-e of sheep, that like the Mahrattas in modern 

 times they originally pressed wedge-wise into the dry jungle 

 tracts of the Carnatic plain, whilst the rich alluvial lands remained 

 in the possession of the enervated but wealthy races of the coast. 

 The records which bear upon the subject are very contradictory 

 and confused and so mixed up with fable that it is almost impossi- 

 ble to extricate from the tangled mass any intelligible account of 

 this strange people. Some historians put the date of their conquest 

 at 700 A.D. Others recognize in them the Rajas of Vijayanagar 

 and fix it as late as 1500 A.D. This latter theory is impro- 

 bable, as the southern tribes seem to have lost all traces of 

 civilization and to have no recollection whatever of their previous 

 history. It should not, however, be lost sight of that Buchanan 

 mentions Kuruba horsemen, known as Handi Rasalas, living about 

 the upper Kistna. 



These, however, are but fragmentary notices. But when the 

 inscriptions at Conjevaram and elsewhere have been deciphered, 

 some connected history of South India from the times of Asoka 

 to the fall of Vijayanagar will perhaps be written. In such a 

 history it may be found that the Kurumbas have played an 

 important part in South India. At present the attempt to piece 

 together the scraps of information which are scattered here and 

 tliere seems to promise little profit. The paleographist must 

 precede the historian. 



i The Kurumbas are small in stature, very uncouth, and wild and Physical 

 I squalid in appearance. An average of 25 measured by Dr. Shortt ^ ?^»a'"acter. 

 gives the height of the men as 60-64 inches. He says: — 



See Tribes on the Nilaqiris. 



-Shortt. 



27 



