Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-19T15:04:18.703Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Kurumbas of the Nilgiris: An Ethnographic Myth?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Nurit Bird
Nurit Bird
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part I discuss ethnographic accounts from the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries which concern the tribal Kurumbas of the Nilgiri Hills in South India. In the second part I present a brief profile of the Naiken, one of the Kurumba sub-groups with whom I conducted anthropological fieldwork between September 1978 and October 1979. The name Naiken is used by the people themselves and their immediate neighbours. In the literature they are often referred to as Jenu Kurumbas. In the final part of the paper, I critically re-examine the literature in the light of my field material and experience. Prior to my work none of the Nilgiri Kurumba groups have been subjected to intensive anthropological studies, although there are references to them, and in particular to their role visà-vis the other Nilgiri tribes in numerous accounts, including such seminal works as The Toda by W. H. R. Rivers (1906) and ‘Culture Change among the Nilgiri Tribes’ by Mandelbaum (1941). I suggest that the much-criticized early accounts by ‘amateur’ travellers, administrators, and planters may be more accurate than has been thought and perhaps even more revealing than the subsequent references up to the present offered by ‘professional’ anthropologists.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , February 1987 , pp. 173 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bird, N. 1983a. ‘Conjugal Units and Single Persons: An Analysis of the Social System of the Naiken’. Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University.Google Scholar
Bird, N. 1983b. ‘Wage Gathering: Socio-economic Changes and the Case of the Naiken of South India’, in Rural South Asia: Linkages, Changes and Development edited by Robb, P.. Collected papers on South Asia vol. 5. S.O.A.S. London: Curzon.Google Scholar
Bird-David, N. H. (formerly Bird) (in press). ‘The People and the Ethnographic Myth: An Introduction to the Study of the Naiken’, in Blue Mountains: The Ethnography and Biogeography of a South Indian Region, edited by Hockings, P.. Delhi: Oxford University Press..Google Scholar
Breeks, J. W. 1873. An Account of the Primitive Tribes and Monuments of the Nilagiris. London: India Museum.Google Scholar
Buchanan, F. (afterwards Hamilton) 1807. A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar. London: W. Bulmer & Co.Google Scholar
Dubois, J. A. 1897. Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. Trans. Beauchamp, H. K.Oxford: Clarendon Press (Indian Reprint 1973).Google Scholar
Francis, W. 1908. Madras District Gazetteers: The Nilgiris. Madras Govt. Press.Google Scholar
Fürer-Haimendorf, C. von. 1952. ‘Ethnographic Notes on some Communities of the Wynad’. Eastern Anth. vol. VI, 18–36.Google Scholar
Grigg, H. B. (ed.), 1880. A Manual of the Nilagiri District in the Madras Presidency. Madras: E. Keys Govt. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hockings, P. 1980. Ancient Hindu Refugees: Badagas Social History 1550–1975. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hockings, P. (in press). ‘The Cultural Ecology of the Nilgiris District’, in Blue Mountains: The Ethnography and Biogeography of a South Indian Region, edited by Hockings, P.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kapp, D. B. 1978a. ‘Childbirth and Name-giving among the Ālu Kurumbas of South India’, in Aspects of Tribal Life in South Asia 1: Strategy and Survival, edited by Moser, R. R. and Gautam, , M. K. Univ. of Berne, pp. 167–80.Google Scholar
Kapp, D. B. 1978b. ‘Die Kindheits- und Jugendriten der Ālu Kurumbas (Südindien)’, Zeitschrift für Ethnologic, Band 103 (2): 279–89.Google Scholar
Kapp, D. B. 1980. ‘Die Ordination des Preisters bei den Ālu Kurumbas (Südindien)’ Anthropos, Band 75: 433–46.Google Scholar
Mandelbaum, D. G. 1941. ‘Culture Change among the Nilgiri Tribes’, Amer. Anth. 43: 19–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, M. 1926. Myth in Primitive Psychology. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.Google Scholar
Misra, R. 1971. Mullukurumbas of Kappala. Anthropological Survey of India, Memoir no. 30.Google Scholar
Morgan, ?. 1876. Quoted in Kapp, D. B. and Hockings, P. (in press), ‘The Kurumbas Tribes’, in Blue Mountains: The Ethnography and Biogeography of a South Indian Region, edited by Hockings, P.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rooksby, R. L. 1961. ‘The Kurumbas of Malabar’. Ph.D. thesis, London.Google Scholar
Rivers, W. H. R. 1906.The Todas. London: Macmillan & Co.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1972. Stone Age Economics. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Thurston, E. 1909. Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Madras Govt. Press, vol. IV: 155–77.Google Scholar
Turnbull, C. M. 1965. Wayward Servants: The Two Worlds of the African Pygmie (Reprinted 1976). Connecticut: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Woodburn, J. C. 1980. ‘Hunter and Gatherers Today and Reconstruction of the Past’, in Soviet and Western Anthropology edited by Gellner, E.London: Duckworth, pp. 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zvelebil, K. V. 1981. ‘Problems of Identification and Classification of some Nilagiri Tribes’, Anthropos 76: 467–528.Google Scholar