WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNER
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person. There was a time when no person of the servile class could take his food without drinking the water in which the toes of the Brahmins were washed. Sir P. C. Ray once described how in his childhood, rows of children belonging to the servile classes used to stand for hours together in the morning on the roadside in Calcutta with cups of water in their hands waiting for a Brahmin to pass, ready to wash his feet and take the sacred liquid to their parents who would not take their food without having a sip of it first. He was entitled to first fruits. In Malabar, where the Sambandham form of marriage prevails, the servile classes, such as the Nairsy regard it an honour to have their females kept as mistresses by the Brahmins. Even kings invited Brahmins to deflower their queens on prima noctis. [1]
- The Traveller Ludovico Di Varthema who came to India in the middle of the
16th century and visited Malabar says :
“It ia proper and at the same time a pleasant thing to know who these Brahmins are. You must know that they are the chief persona of the faith, as priests are among us. And when the king takes a wife he selects the most worthy and the most honoured of these Brahmins and makes him sleep the first night with his wife, in order that he may deflower her. Do not imagine that the Brahmin goes willingly to perform this operation. The king is obliged to pay him four hundred to five hundred ducats. The king only and-no other person in Calicut adopts this practice.”— Voyages of Varthma (Hakluyat Society), Vol I, p 141.
Other Travellers tell that the practice was widespread. Hamilton in his Account of the East Indies says :
“When the Samorin marries, he most not cohabit with his bride till the Nambourie (Nambudri) or chief priest, has enjoyed her, and if he pleases he may have three nights of her company, because the first fruits of her nuptials most be a holy oblation to the God she worships and some of the nobles are so complacent as to allow the clergy the same tribute ; bat the common people cannot have that compliment paid to them, but are forced to supply the priests places themselves.”—Vol. I, p. 308.
Buchanan in his Narrative refers to the practice in the following terms :
“The ladies of the Tamuri family are generally impregnated by Nambudries ; although if they choose they may employ the higher ranks of Naire ; bus the sacred character of the Nambudries always procures them a preference.”— Pinkerton’s Voyages, Vol. VIII, p. 734.
Mr. C. A. Innes, I.C.S., Editor of the Gazetteer of Malabar and Anjengo issued under the authority of the Government of Madras, says :
“Another institution found amongst all the classes following the marukak-kattayam system, as well as amongst many of those who observe makkattayam, is that known as “Tali-tying wedding “which has been described as the most peculiar, distinctive and unique” among Malayali marriage customs. Its essence is the tying of a tali (a small piece of gold or other metal, like a locket on a string) on a girl’s neck before she attains the ago of puberty. This is done by a man of the same or of a higher caste (the usages of different classes differ), and it is only after it has been done that the girl is at liberty to contract, a sambandham. It seems to be generally considered that the ceremony was intended to confer on the tali tier or manavalan (bridegroom) a right to cohabit with the girl; and by some the origin of the ceremony is found in the claim of the Bhu-devas or “Earth-Gods,” (that is the Brahmins), and on a lower plane of Kshatriyas or ruling classes, to the first-fruits of lower caste womanhood, a right akin to the mediaeval droit de seigneurie ”—Vol. I, p. 101.