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The Kallar (or Kallan, formerly spelled as Colleries) are one of the three related castes of southern India which constitute the Mukkulathor confederacy. The Kallar, along with the Maravar and Akamudayar, constitute a united social caste on the basis of parallel professions, though their locations and heritages are wholly separate from one another.

Etymology

Kallar is a Tamil language word meaning "thief". Their history has included periods of banditry. Other proposed etymological origins include "black skinned", "hero", and "toddy-tappers".

Susan Bayly notes that the name, as with that of Maravar, was a title bestowed by Tamil poligars (warrior-chiefs) on pastoral peasants who acted as their armed retainers. The majority of those poligars, who during the late 17th- and 18th-centuries controlled much of the Telugu region as well as the Tamil area, had themselves come from the Kallar, Maravar and Vaduga communities. Kallar is synonymous with the western Indian term, Koli, having connotations of thievery but also of upland pastoralism. According to Bayly, Kallar should be considered a "title of rural groups in Tamilnad with warrior-pastoralist ancestral traditions."

Caste origins

Bayly notes that the Kallar and Maravar identities as a caste, rather than as a title, "... were clearly not ancient facts of life in the region. Insofar as these people of the turbulent poligar country really did become castes, their bonds of affinity were shaped in the relatively recent past." Prior to the late 18th-century, their exposure to Brahmanic Hinduism, the concept of varna and practices such as endogamy that define the Indian caste system was minimal. Thereafter, the evolution as a caste developed as a result of various influences, including increased interaction with other groups as a consequence of jungle clearances, state-building and ideological shifts.

Culture

Among the traditional customs of the Kallar noted by colonial officials was the use of the "collery stick" (Template:Lang-ta), a bent throwing stick or "false boomerang" which could be thrown up to 100 yards. Though described as a "false" boomerang, other writers indicate that it was capable of returning to its thrower, and also noted the weapon was used in deer-hunting. Writing in 1957, Louis Dumont noted that despite the weapon's frequent mention in literature, it had disappeared amongst the Pramalai Kallar.

Diet

The Kallar were traditionally a non-vegetarian people, though a 1970s survey of Tamilnad indicated that 30% of Kallar surveyed, though non-vegetarian, refrained from eating fish after puberty. Meat, though present in the Kallar diet, was not frequently eaten but restricted to Saturday nights and festival days. Even so, this small amount of meat was sufficient to affect perceptions of Kallar social status.

References

1. Notes on Criminal Classes of the Madras presidency. Government Press. p. 82.
2. Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 62, 87, 193.
3. Historical Dictionary of the Tamils. Rowman and Little field USA. p. 105.
4. Sociology and Social Research. Vol. 11. University of Southern California. p. 121.
5. Senāthi Rājā, E. S. W. (1887). "The Pre-Sanskrit Element in Ancient Tamil". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland (New Series). 19 (4): 581. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
6. Sadasivan, S. N. A Social History of India. p. 287.
7. Dirks, Nicholas B. (1993). The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (2nd ed.). University of Michigan Press. p. 242. ISBN 9780472081875.
8. G. Kuppuram. India through the ages: history, art, culture, and religion, Volume 1. Sundeep Prakashan, 1988. Pg 366
9. ^ Bayly, Susan (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-521-79842-6.
10. ^ Bayly, Susan (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-521-79842-6.
11. Bayly, Susan (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 385. ISBN 978-0-521-79842-6.
12. Sir Henry Yule; Arthur Coke Burnell (1903). Hobson-Jobson: a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive. J. Murray. pp. 236–. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
13. Gustav Salomon Oppert; Lakshmīkānta Varmā; Śukra (1880). On the weapons, army organisation, and political maxims of the ancient Hindus: with special reference to gunpowder and firearms. Higginbotham. pp. 18–. Retrieved 21 March 2012. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
14. Louis Dumont; A. Stern; Michael Moffatt (1986). A South Indian subcaste: social organization and religion of the Pramalai Kallar. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
15. Criminal gods and demon devotees: essays on the guardians of popular Hinduism - Alf Hiltebeitel - Google Books
16. Food, ecology, and culture: readings in the anthropology of dietary practices - John R. K. Robson - Google Books
17. A South Indian subcaste: social organization and religion of the Pramalai Kallar - Louis Dumont, A. Stern, Michael Moffatt - Google Books

• Mukkulathor