Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Mala Arayan
Mala Arayan. — The Mala Arayans are described, in the Travancore Census Report, 1901, as "a class of hill tribes, who are a little more civilized than the Mannāns, and have fixed abodes on the slopes of high mountain ranges. Their villages are fine-looking, with trees and palms all round. They are superior in appearance to most other hill tribes, but are generally short in stature. Some of the Arayans are rich, and own large plots of cultivated grounds. They seldom work for hire, or carry loads. A curious custom with them is that every man in the family has his own room separate from the rest, which only he and his wife are permitted to enter. They are very good hunters and have a partiality for monkey flesh. As wizards they stand very high,and all the low-country people cherish a peculiar dread for them. Makkathāyam is the prevailing form of inheritance (from father to son),but among a few families narumakkathāyam (inheritance through the female line)obtains as an exception. Their language is a corrupt form of Malayalam. Their marriage ceremony is simple. The bridegroom and bride sit and eat on the same plantain leaf, after which the tāli (marriage badge) is tied. The bride then seizes any ornament or cooking vessel in the house, saying that it is her father's. The bridegroom snatches it from her, and the marriage rite is concluded. Birth pollution is of considerable importance. It lasts for a whole month for the father, and for seven days for the mother. The Arayans bury their dead. Drinking is a very common failing."
It is recorded by Mr. M. J. Walhouse *[1] that " on the higher ranges in Travancore there are three of Parasurāma's cairns, where the Mala Arraiyans still keep lamps burning. They make miniature cromlechs of small slabs of stone, and place within them a long pebble to represent the deceased. Dr. Livingstone noticed a similar custom in Africa. 'In various villages we observed miniature huts about two feet high, very neatly thatched and plastered. Here we noticed them in dozens. On inquiry we were told that, when a child or relative dies, one is made, and, when any pleasant food is cooked or beer brewed, a little is placed in the tiny hut for the departed soul, which is believed to enjoy it.' So the Mala Arraiyans offer arak (liquor) and sweetmeats to the departed spirit to be hovering near the miniature cromlech."
In a detailed account of the Mala Arayans, the Rev. S. Mateer writes as follows.[2] "The Arayans bury their dead; consequently there are many ancient tumuli in these hills, evidently graves of chiefs, showing just the same fragments of pottery, brass figures, iron weapons, etc., as are found in other similar places. These tumuli are often surrounded with long splintered pieces of granite, from eight to twelve or fifteen feet in length, set up on end, with sacrificial altars and other remains, evidently centuries old. Numerous vaults, too, called Pāndi Kuri, are seen in all their hills. They stand north and south, the circular opening being to the south; a round stone is fitted to this aperture, with another acting as a long lever, to prevent its falling out; the sides, as also the stones of the top and bottom, are single slabs. To this day the Arayans make similar little cells of pieces of stone, the whole forming a box a few inches square; and, on the death of a member of any family, the spirit is supposed to pass, as the body is being buried, into a brass or silver image, which is shut into this vault; if the parties are very poor, an oblong smooth stone suffices. A few offerings of milk, rice, toddy, and ghee (clarified butter) are made, a torch is lighted and extinguished, the figure placed inside the cell, and the covering hastily put on; then all leave. On the anniversary, similar offerings being made, the stone is lifted off, and again hastily closed. The spirit is thus supposed to be enclosed; no one ventures to touch the cell at any other time.
"The objects of Arayan worship are the spirits of their ancestors, or certain local demons supposed to reside in rocks or peaks, and having influence only over particular villages or families. The religious services rendered to these are intended to deprecate anger rather than to seek benefits; but in no case is lust to be gratified, or wickedness practiced, as pleasing to these deities. One of their ancestors is represented by a brass image about three inches in height, the back of the head hollow, the hands holding a club and a gun. This represents a demonized man of wicked character, who lived about a century ago. He is said to have beaten his wife to death with a club; wherefore the people joined to break his skull, and he became a malignant demon. Another image carried an umbrella and staff, and had a milder countenance—this was a good demon. One such image is kept in each family, in which the spirit is supposed actually to reside. They were also put into the little square chambers described above. The Rev. W. J. Richards, of Cottayam, has favoured me with the following history, which throws much light upon this curious superstition. 'Tālanāni was a priest or oracle-revealer of the hunting deity, Ayappan, whose chief shrine is in Savarimala, a hill among the Travancore ghāts. The duty of Tālanāni was to deck himself out in his sword, bangles, beads, etc., and, highly frenzied with excitement and strong drink, dance in a horrid convulsive fashion before his idols, and reveal in unearthly shrieks what the god had decreed on any particular matter. He belonged to the Hill Arayan village of Eruma-pāra (the rock of the she-buffalo), some eight miles from Mēlkāvu, and was most devoted to his idolatry, and rather remarkable in his peculiar way of showing his zeal. When the pilgrims from his village used to go to Savarimala — a pilgrimage which is always, for fear of the tigers and other wild beasts, performed in companies of forty or fifty — our hero would give out that he was not going, and yet, when they reached the shrine of their devotions, there before them was the sorcerer, so that he was both famous among his fellows and favoured of the gods. Now, while things were in this way, Tālanāni was killed by the neighbouring Chōgans during one of his drunken bouts, and the murderers, burying his body in the depths of the jungle, thought that their crime would never be found out; but the tigers — Ayappan's dogs — in respect to so true a friend of their master, scratched open the grave, and removing the corpse, laid it on the ground. The wild elephants found the body, and reverently took it where friends might discover it, and, a plague of small-pox having attacked the Chōgans, another oracle declared it was sent by Sāstāvu (the Travancore hill boundary god, called also Chāttan or Sāttan) in anger at the crime that had been committed; and that the evil would not abate until the murderers made an image of the dead priest, and worshipped it. This they did, placing it in a grave, and in a little temple no bigger than a small dog kennel. The image itself is about four inches high, of bronze. The heir of Tālanāni became priest and beneficiary of the new shrine, which was rich in offerings of arrack, parched rice, and meat vowed by the Arayans when they sallied out on hunting expeditions. All the descendants of Tālanāni are Christians, the result of the Rev. Henry Baker's work. The last heir who was in possession of the idol, sword, bangle, beads, and wand of the sorcerer, handed them over to the Rev. W. J. Richards in 1881.'
"Lamps to the memory of their ancestors were kept burning in little huts, and at stones used to represent the spirits of their ancestors. At one spot, where the genii were supposed to reside, there was a fragment of granite well oiled, and surrounded by a great number of extinguished torches. A most fearful demon was said to reside in a hollow tree, which had been worshipped by thousands of families. They did not know the precise hole in which the symbol was to be found; when discovered, it looked like the hilt of an old sword. One deity was said by the priest of a certain hill to have placed three curious looking rocks as resting-places for himself on his journey to the peak. Cocoanuts are offered to famous demons, residing in certain hills. It has been observed that, in cases of sickness, sometimes Arayans will make offerings to a Hindu god, and that they attend the great feasts occasionally; but in no case do they believe that they are under any obligation to do so, their own spirits being considered fully equal to the Hindu gods. Each village has its priest, who, when required, calls on the 'hill' (mala), which means the demon resident there, or the prētham, ghost. If he gets the afflatus, he acts in the usual way, yelling and screaming out the answers sought. The devil-dancer wears the kudumi, and has a belt, bangles, and other implements ; and invokes the demons in case of sickness. "They have some sacred groves, where they will not fire a gun, or speak above a breath; they have certain signs also to be observed when fixing on land for cultivation or the site of a house, but no other elaborate religious rites. In chosing a piece of ground for cultivation, before cutting the jungle they take five strips of bark of equal length, and knot all the ends together, holding them in the left hand by the middle. If all, when tied, form a perfect circle, the omen is lucky, and the position in which the cord falls on the ground is carefully noted by the bystanders."