214 MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 



PART IV. 



Irulas. 



Origin. — Language. — Physical characteristics. — Dress. — Census and Divisions. — 

 Mode of life. — Dwellings. — Religion. — Rites and Ceremonies. — Traditions. 



CHAP. IX, The Irulas^ — the men of darkness — belong to a still more 



PART IV. primitive race than the Kurumbas^ namely, the Bedas or hunters 



Ethnology ^^ ^'^® forests of the peninsula, some of whom, like the Kurumbas, 



have attained to civil life and power in Mysore and the tract 



Origin. ^£ (,Q^j]^^j.y known as ancient Kdrnata. The Bedas of Mysore, 



who belonged in part to Karnata, in part to Telingana, became 

 soldiers by profession and agriculturists, and to them belong- 

 most of the Mysore Palegars. The opinion that the Nilagiri 

 Irulas are allied to these Bedas receives confirmation from the 

 fact that they, like the Mysore Bedas, are worshippers generally 

 of Yishnu, a remarkable circumstance considering the almost 

 universal Sivaism of the aboriginal tribes of South India. This 

 fact is still more remarkable when it is considered that the wilder 

 tribes of Kurumbas^ in Mysore diifer but little from the Mysore 

 Irulas in appearance and mode of life, whilst those of the 

 Nilagiri s not only personally resemble the Irulas, but inhabit 

 villages which are known by the same name — motta — alike situated 

 in the lower slopes, and are occasionally found living in the same 

 hamlets. The tribes of the plateau, however, do not confound 

 them, in fact they hardly recognize the Irulas as inhabitants of 

 the mountain. The identity of the Irulas of Mysore, Kurniil, and 

 elsewhere receives further confirmation from the fact that both 

 speak a corrupt dialect of Tamil. 



Language. Buchanan, who had but a brief acquaintance with the Nilagiri 



Irulas, regarded them as speaking a dialect of Kanarese, and 

 on this ground came to the conclusion that they were not related 

 to the Mysore Irulas, although he observes that their customs 

 and mode of life correspond. Subsequent inquiry has shown their 

 speech to be not Kanarese but Tamil, but this refers to the Irulas 

 proper only. I am not aware whether the speech of the Bedas 

 approaches Tamil or Kanarese ; probably the latter. If this be 

 so, their civilized condition in the midst of a Kanarese population 

 might well account for the gradual abandonment of their native 

 idiom. 



Physical They are superior in physique to the Kurumbas, and rather 



istica!'^ ^^' better looking. According to Dr. Shortt, an average of twenty- 



1 From the Tamil irnl, dark,. bUick. 

 ^ Jain. 



