MANUAL OF THK NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 



219 



Ethnology. 



Wynaad of Major Rennell. They live in small villages and huts like CHAP. IX, 

 the Eriligaru, and not only use the Cotu-cadu cultivation already PART V. 

 described, but have also ploughs. The quantity of honey and wax 

 which they procure is considerable, and they pay nothing for it, there 

 being no forest renter in this district." 



The word Badaga is Kanarese and is the same as the Tamil 

 Vadugan ^ or Northman . It is applied not only to the Bada- 

 gas of the hills who approached them from Mysore and Canara, 

 but is of far wider significance and older date. By this name 

 were designated also the " Telugu followers of the Ndyakkas ^ 

 of Madui'a, who spread themselves over the Tamil country 

 and even made irruptions into South Travancore.^' French 

 Missionaries seem to have considered the words Telugu and 

 Badaga as synonymous ; thus confusing the different northern 

 emigrants under one appellation, as our ancestors called every 

 Teuton a Dutchman and every stranger a Welchman. 



Compared with the other hill tribes, the Badagas are an 

 Aryanized people, though pi^obably descended from the same 

 Dra vidian stock. In their religion and manners they bear the 

 impress of comparatively recent contact with Hindus of the plains ; 

 whilst the Todas, Kotas and Irulas and even the Kurumbas must 

 have taken refuge in the fastnesses of the Nilagiris, either before 

 or soon after the great Aryan invasion of the peninsula. The 

 superstitious reverence for a race far beneath them in intelli- 

 gence and civilization which has induced the Badagas to choose 

 Kurumbas and Irulas for their priests has a parallel in the 

 relations of the high caste people and the Pareiyas of the plains 

 and in the privileges claimed by the Bhills, an aboriginal people, 

 at the coronation of Rdjput princes. 



Unlike the other tribes almost every class of the Badagas 

 has some sort of history of its own, and some even point to 

 villages below the hills from which they came and where their 

 relatives still live.^ 



In appearance the Badagas are very distinct from their Physical 

 neighbours. They are an active race, of moderate stature, with 

 the usual Hindu features and prepossessing expression and 

 light skins. An average of twenty-five measured by Dr. Shortt 

 gives 66-70 as the height of the men, and 58-47 for that of the 

 women. They are accustomed to labor from their earliest youth • 

 boys of from seven to ten years of age being employed to break 

 stones upon the roads ; whilst the women take an equal share with 

 the men in working in the fields. This may in part account for 



charact.er» 



istics. 



^ From Vadiigu, north, and avan, he, pronominal suffix. 



* See Caldwell's Gh-ammar. 



^ See ^Mf.Tz' Tribes of the Xeilgherries. 



