Anthropos: Anthropos, 45.1950,1-3

Anthropos, 45.1950,1-3

Bibliographic Data

Journal

Structure Type:: Journal

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714789

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714789

Persistent identifier:: BV041701500

Title:: Anthropos

Other Titles:: Anthropos

Place of Publication:: Fribourg

Publisher:: Ed. St. Paul, Anthropos-Institut

Year of Publication:: 1906

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Domain:: Social and cultural anthropology > General overview

Journal Volume

Structure Type:: Journal Volume

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-709559

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-709559

Persistent identifier:: DE-11-001871424

Title:: Anthropos, 45.1950,1-3

Year of Publication:: 1950

Call Number:: LA 1118-45,1-3

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Issue

Structure Type:: Journal Issue

Title:: Bd. 45, 1950, Heft 1 - 3

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Article

Structure Type:: Journal Article

Title:: A Kadan Creation-Myth

Other person:: Ehrenfels, U. R. v.

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

166 U. R. v. Ehrenfels, [45, 1950] little interest in their scientific descriptions and was held to be scarcely, if at all, different from those of their aboriginal neighbours and even from the Depressed Classes in the plains from whom the Kadar are no doubt distinguished racially and in their social organization. Already before I had come in personal contact with the tribe I suggested the possibility of the existence, under the guise of their present conventional Kali-worship, of a genuine Kadan religion with a female deity in a prominent position 6 . Since I began ethnographic field-work among the Kadar, over a year ago, early in 1947, various features of original Kadan religious conceptions have been encountered by me, centred, as it were, round a creation-of-the- world-myth which is the object of the following description. The Kadar are even more reluctant to talk to outsiders on the subject of the creation- myth properly than on that of its central figure : the divine couple Malavay and Malakuratti 7 ; apparently because they feel more self-conscious about this quite original Kadan creation-myth than about the mere name of gods which are less unfamiliar to the people from the plains. The peculiar and all too rapid mode of culture contact between the Kadar and the civilization from the plains will have to account for that self-consciousness and shyness. The tribe had lived, for uncounted generations, in almost complete isolation on one of the densest and most inaccessible parts of the Western Ghats, half-way between Polachi and Chalakudy, where the Coimbatore- and South Malabar - Districts border the Chittur Taluq of Cochin State, until the construction of a timber transport tram-line suddenly opened the very centre of the Kadan territory in the beginning of the XX-ieth century. A great number of coolies, both Tamil and Malayalam speaking, tradesmen, minor officials and forest employees were rushed to the place, especially during the time of the construction of the tram-line. They were certainly not the type of people who would show any interest, or love, for the mytho logical believes of a shy and primitive hill tribe, but exhibited much rather contempt and disgust. If the number of the invaders from the plains decreased later, the influence of their conceptions and prejudices on the Kadar was not less intensive. Contractors to whom the exploitation of the forest products is being rented on lease maintain their agents in the hills and some of the Kadar themselves are now being employed in the Forest Administration. One of these, with whom I had wandered about the Kadan territory, once told me chuckingly that he could well remember his father one day packing off bag and baggage and shifting the whole family to a remote place in the jungle for the sole reason that he had found some rice grains in a human excrement ; — a clear indication of a low-coun tryman’s presence ! Such was the attitude of the Kadar to low-country folk only a generation ago. This rapid change from former isolation and 6 Ehrenfels : Mother-right in India, Milford, 1941, p. 46. 7 Ananthakrishna Ayyar, op. cit., p. 11/1 refers to Malavazhi (ruler of the hills) as “another vague sylvan deity whom they (i. e. : Kadar) worship”.

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