Nayars of Malabar

Title: Nayars of Malabar
Author: F. Fawcett
Publisher: Asian Educational Services, 1985 (First published 1901)
ISBN: Nil
Pages: 138

The British administrators who ruled over India in the colonial period took it upon themselves to study about their subject population. Though it might appear an enlightened course of action, let it be clearly stated that this effort was solely to find ways in which the natives could be guided and controlled to achieve the ends of the colonial masters. And they found a lot to study with thousands of endogamous social groups called jatis in each province. The results of this research came out as reports, letters to designated learned societies like the Asiatic Society, state manuals, research papers and books. This book is one such study on the Nayar caste in Malabar. Only the northern part of Kerala known as Malabar was under British rule, but the conclusions and characteristics deduced from this study is applicable without much alteration to the entire Nayar caste of Kerala. The modern spelling used to denote the caste is ‘Nair’, but for easy comprehension and in agreement with the terminology in this book, the term ‘Nayar’ is used in this review. Frederick Fawcett (1853 – 1926) was a British civil servant and ethnographer who worked in Kerala as the superintendent of Malabar police. He was an amateur archaeologist and anthropologist and retired in 1911 as the deputy inspector general of police in Madras. Several publications on his topics of interest stand in public domain as testimonials to this man’s varied interests. This book is a part of the series of notes on people of Malabar and pages are numbered from 193 to 323. The book describes Malabar as an earthly paradise where Nature has lavished her gifts with unmatched prodigality. Modern visitors would also find the region as described which confirm its modern epithet ‘God’s Own Country’ as an unchanged certitude. Along with its natural beauty, it is asserted in the book that the most undiluted form of the highest and most abstract religion is seen side by side with the most entirely primitive.

Fawcett identifies 21 clans (sub-castes) among Nayars with the ‘Kiriyathil’ at the top. He expresses doubt on their Dravida lineage and finds similarities with the Uriyas of Gumsoor in Ganjam, Odisha in the matter of outward appearance, customs, habitation and general mode of life. Even though all these clans were Nayars, they are further rearranged in hierarchical order. The Vattakkad and Pallichan clans were lower in standing and generally not allowed to suffix the caste title to their names as done by other Nayars. Matrimony was also restricted among the clans as women were not allowed to marry or cohabit with men who were lower in rank to their clan. The author provides extensive data tables tabulating physical measurements like height, span, chest, cephalic length, nasal height etc. as if these were specimens of some kind with which the outside world has yet to familiarize. A tinge of racism and a slight whiff of eugenics are felt here since we now know that the people of Kerala – irrespective of caste or religion – belong to the same racial stock though individuals may differ. Curiously, this is borne out in the tables too as the physical parameters are almost the same across all clans. The minor differences of a few millimetres in stature are not statistically significant.

Fawcett notes some interesting facts about the Malabar society of his times. A recurring and embarrassing issue was the practice of polyandry practised by some communities and the loosely knit moral standards of the Nayar community. The author quotes learned men reiterate the command that Sudra women in Malabar is ordained to serve the Brahmins and they need not remain chaste. However, the author clearly states that this is not what is seen in practice as ‘nowhere else is the marriage tie more jealously guarded and its breaches more savagely avenged’ (p.228). As a matter of fact, he points out that promiscuity has no more followers in Malabar than elsewhere. The relations between sexes are unusually happy, the reason being that they are less influenced by considerations of property than elsewhere. Flexibility in marriage is also stressed. Should the parties find they are unsuited, they part. There is no dragging on under bondage intolerable to both (p.232). It is also mentioned that all Nayars believe in magical remedies, but he does not judge them by this alone and mitigates it with a remark that ‘such beliefs are very deep in human nature and one of the earliest heirlooms of the human family which may persist to the very end. Reason and culture do not efface it’. The communal situation in Malabar was generally tolerant, but the region had also witnessed heinous communal riots bordering on Hindu genocide in 1921. This book talks about a minor incident which indicates that not all communities practised tolerance on equal measure. Some Mappilas had reportedly destroyed a stone lingam in search of treasure which was worshipped at a forest grove at Kottiyur temple (p.269).

It is amusing to learn about some curious aspects of Malabar society as it existed about 130 years ago. The men were always clean-shaven except during mourning for a near relative. This included removal of body hair from all parts except the crown of head and was done by a professional dedicated to the purpose. In Malabar, the prevalent idea was that no respectable woman shall cover her breast (p.198) though this practice was observed to be fading out of use. An important point to notice is that it was not restricted to the lower castes alone as is usually alleged. The life expectancy was obviously short and this risk was hedged by people opting for more children with the average of about five per family. We see arguments in contemporary media about how climate change makes summers hotter and the weather unpredictable and harsher. An observation about summer heat in Malabar is worth contemplation in this context. Fawcett writes that ‘a few hours’ walk in the midday sun where there is little or no shade is sufficient to bring on fever to the ordinarily strong man’ (p.213). So it seems nothing has changed that much.

The book provides a detailed description of rituals in vogue for birth, marriage and death of a member of the Nayar community. These are mostly copied from written accounts prepared by prominent members of that caste and it’s doubtful if the author had actually witnessed all of them. A description of the religious functions attending to a festival at the Pishari temple in Koyilandi is included. Even though lower castes were not allowed entry in the temple, each and every caste was represented in the festival within a complex web of duties and responsibilities whose filaments crisscrossed across the entire body of the local Hindu society. A peculiar feature of the Kottiyur temple festival mentioned in the book is interesting. The people going to attend it are distinctively rowdy, feeling they have a right to abuse in the vilest and filthiest terms anyone they see on the way which could go up to violence to person and property. But they return like lambs (p.267). The author then identifies the differences between the rituals and customs of Nayars and Nambudiris. The former is more inclined towards animism and deification of ancestors, worship of snakes and kites, sacrifice, magic, witchcraft and sorcery while the Nambudiris employ the purest form of Vedic Brahminism which has its highest expression in the temples attached to Nambudiri houses (illam). The book also carries an informative part on snake worship in Malabar and Travancore.

On the negative side, the book makes some outrageous conclusions drawn from physical measurements of persons belonging to various sub-castes among Nayars. Regarding a particular individual, Fawcett remarks that ‘the person whose cephalic index is the maximum that was measured in Palghat where there are many Pattar (east coast) Brahmins, his father was in all probability, one of them’ (p.207). The author is sometimes deceived by similar sounding names that can have no correlation or causation between them. In the case of a Taravad whose name Thondil that sounds similar to Tindys mentioned as a port of call in Periplus, he surmises that a man belonging to that Taravad ‘bears the name of the place as it was in the days of Ptolemy’ (p.202). Fawcett was a man with wide interests and he wanted to describe the vagaries of his subject-people in all its manifestations. Modesty binds his pen in describing some sexual practices of Nayar women and he writes three sentences in Latin language to describe this amusing peculiarity (p.297) and to wriggle out of the dilemma. Ordinarily, this would have put the readers on the sharp needle of impotent suspense, but with the development of software technology, Google’s translation service from Latin to English would come to their rescue. The book also includes some monochromatic photographs taken by the author.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star