There are two classes of Irulas in the North Arcot district, of which one lives in towns and villages, and the other leads a jungle life. Among the latter, as found near Kuppam, there are two distinct divisions, called Īswaran Vagaira and Dharmarāja. The former set up a stone beneath a temporary hut, and worship it by offering cooked rice and cocoanuts on unam (Lettsomia elliptica) leaves. The god Dharmarāja is represented by a vessel instead of a stone, and the offerings are placed in a basket. In the jungle section, a woman may marry her deceased husband's brother. The dead are buried face upwards, and three stones are set up over the grave.
The Irulas of South Arcot, Mr. Francis writes,*[1] "are chiefly found about the Gingee hills, talk a corrupt Tamil, are very dark skinned, have very curly hair, never shave their heads, and never wear turbans or sandals. They dwell in scattered huts — never more than two or three in one place — which are little, round, thatched hovels, with a low doorway through which one can just crawl, built among the fields. They subsist by watching crops, baling water from wells, and, when times are hard, by crime of a mild kind. In Villupuram and Tirukkōyilūr tāluks, and round Gingee, they commit burglaries in a mild and unscientific manner if the season is bad, and they are pressed by want, but, if the ground-nut crop is a good one, they behave themselves. They are perhaps the poorest and most miserable community in the district. Only one or two of them own any land, and that is only dry land. They snare hares now and again, and collect the honey of the wild bees by letting themselves down the face of cliffs at night by ladders made of twisted
- ↑ * Gazetteer of the South Arcot district.
