Tanjore District Research Articles

Brahman Kinship in a Tamil Village1

THE kinship systems of all the Hindu castes of Tanjore District, South India, have certain features in common. All follow the rule of patrilineal descent. With the exception of town-dwellers, all are distributed in small caste communities, each community forming a local group within a multi-caste village. Villagers traditionally depend for maintenance, directly or indirectly, on wet rice lands and dry garden lands, and village sites remain fixed for centuries. Each caste community within the village contains from one to about twelve exogamous patrilineal groups. Marriages take place within the caste between members of different patrilineal groups of the same or of different villages, and communities of the same caste residing in the villages of a given locality (whose limits vary from caste to caste) form an endogamous subcaste. Within the subcaste, bilateral cross-cousin marriage and marriage to the elder sister's or classificatory elder sister's daughter are preferred. Given these common features, two main subtypes of kinship systems exist. One is the system of the Brahmans, the highest caste of landlords and religious specialists. The other is found in its purest form among the Pallans and Parayans, the lowest castes of landless laborers, collectively called Adi Dravidas or Original Dravidians, who live on the outskirts of villages. Major differences between these two systems include differences in the range of the kinship system as a whole, the size and generation depth of the patrilineal group, the composition of the dwelling group, the rules regulating marriage and divorce, the type of payments made at marriage, the range of incest prohibitions, the rules of adoption and of ancestral propitiation, certain differences in the pattern of kinship terms, and considerable differences in the rights and obligations, the emotional content, and the etiquette of behavior between kin. Two sets of factors seem to underlie those special characteristics of the Brahman kinship system which differentiate it from that of the lower castes: first, the Brahmans' occupations, means of subsistence, and position in the scale of ranked castes; and second, certain moral values deriving from the Sanskrit religious tradition, of which they are the main carriers. With regard to the first set of factors, Brahmans are traditionally permanent owners of agricultural land, rather than potentially mobile tenants, artisans, or landless laborers. This has implications for the depth and structure of their patrilineal groups, and their pattern of residence. Further, Brahmans as landowners are maintained by the work of lower caste tenants and laborers. As religious specialists, the men do almost no manual labor, but spend the greater part of their time in the home, absorbed in ritual and in kinship relationships. Women work only in the home, do not by traditional custom own immovable property, and (unlike low caste women) make no contribution to the household income in the form of cash or goods. These facts have im-

A Note on the Double Cropping of Paddy in Wynad

In Madras State, Malabar is one of the deficient districts in rice production, even though the total area under paddy in Malabar is fairly high. Malabar records a total production of 3 17 lakhs tons from an area of 8:45 lakhs acres which compares very unfavourably with the production of 85 lakhs tons from a cultivated area of 13-38 lakhs acres in Tanjore district. On this basis Tanjore records a mean acre yield of 1400 lb. per acre while in Malabar the average yield works out only to 900 lb. per acre (Natarajan 1941). This situation therefore calls for consideration of the ways and means to augment the production of rice in this district.

A Soil Profile Containing Abnormally High Phosphoric Acid

During the soil survey of Tanjore district, it was noted that the soil profile taken in the village of Pattiswaran contained an abnormally high amount of phosphoric acid. A detailed investigation was carried out to find out the nature and cause of this unusual phenomenon. Pattiswaram is situated about three miles south-west of Kumbakonam, A rapid test for phosphoric acid in the surface soils of the village was conducted with the Purdue kit and it was noticed that the soils with high phosphorus content are located round about the hamlet of Injaladi.

Cultivation of Bananas for Leaves in Tanjore District

Banana, besides being an important food crop capable of yielding on an average 20,000 to 25,000 lb. of food per acre in a year, is also a valuable money crop. The intensive cultivation of bananas is practised mostly for its fruits. Its cultivation for the purpose of leaves, except in parts of the Tanjore district and to a very little extent in Tiruchira- palli district, is not known anywhere else. In other parts of the State, one or two ratoon crops of bananas for bunches are taken after the main plant crop; subsequent to this, all the suckers of the harvested plants are allowed to grow for about four to six months and the leaves are harvested. When the crop is intended for fruits, removing even a single leaf from the plant is strongly objected to by the ryots as it would affect the size and weight of the bunch. Hence the leaves are cut only from the side suckers or from the plantation which is proposed to be destroyed and replanted. In the Tanjore district round about Thiruvayar and in parts of Papanasam taluk, bananas are cultivated for the sake of the leaves. The crop stands in the field for two years. A crop of bunches is taken in the first year plant crop; the ratoon crop, subsequent to the harvest of bunches, is the one for the leaves. The leaf crop in the second year fetches more profit than the first year bunch crop. Such cultivation for the purpose of the leaves extends to abont 2,000 acres in the above places,

Some problems on Banana Breeding

The province of Madras has an estimated area of 1,36,455 acres under bananas, with an annual production of 11,33,000 tons of fruits. Added to this the banana has also numerous other virtues, which entitles it to be classed as the most popular fruit crop in this province. It thrives from sea level up to 5,500 feet and is as equally at home in the arid hot plains as in the tropical humid zones. With a capacity to yield a quantity of food per acre excelled by none and of a type valuable to infants, invalids as well as for all normal persons the banana assumes a special importance in the present context of intensified food production. It is, therefore, appropriate that the Government of Madras, in conjunction with the Government of India have decided to establish the All India Banana Research Station in our province, in the Tanjore District.

A Plea for Reviving the Omblachery Breed of Cattle in the Tanjore District

Omblachery breed The district of Tanjore, familiarly known as the "granary of the South", is also reputed from time immemorial, for its sturdy cattle, in relation to its agricultural economy. The ryots of the district have been depending for long, for their agricultural operations on a well- suited local breed of cattle known as the "Omblachery breed", taking its name from a village called Omblachery, in the Taluk of Tiruturaipundi. The bullock of this breed is a sturdy worker, both at the wheels and at the plough. It is of medium size with a comparatively small head. Its com- plexion is, generally, bluish grey, and it has a white star on its fore-head. It has shining dark eyes and wears a few thick hairs, on its chin. Its tail is black above the thighs and ends with a lotus like brush of snow-white hair, soft and glossy like silk. Its hoofs are equally white and resemble ivory, in their finish. The pure bred pedigree sire is generally ferocious by nature. Owing to the large demand for this breed of cattle and due to lack of organised effort in breeding in the past decade, its population in the village of Omblachery has slowly dwindled. At present, the pure stock is very rare and outnumbered by those of mixed blood. The pure breed is known throughout the district, as the jathi madu.

Fish Rearing in Faddy Fields on the Agricultura Research Station, Aduturai, Tanjore District

There are over a million acres of wet land of very flat nature in the Cauvery delta which are under swamp paddy from June to January. The irrigation source is the Cauvery river and its numerous distributories. Water from the river is conveyed through the main channels from which, branch or field channels take off and deliver the water direct into the paddy fields. With the construction of the Mettur Reservoir, the supply of water has been so well regulated that there is hardly any dearth of supply at any time during the irrigation season. With such assured water supply for 8 months in the year the writer, as Superintendent in charge of the Agri- cultural Research Station, Aduturai, thought it worth while to start rearing of fish in paddy fields with suitable precautions. The experiment was started in 1933-34 paddy season. As indigenous varieties of fish including many species of carps naturally occur in the river water, artificial rearing of the fry was not attempted, but precautions were taken to see that fish that once entered the block of land selected for the experiment were never allowed to escape, by the provision, at the drainage vents of 'V' shaped bamboo screens which allowed entry of the fish into the paddy fields but not their escape .

An appeal to Tanjore ryots

There is an impression among many that paddy cultivation which has been in vogue from time immemorial in Tanjore District has reached a high level of perfection. But the truth is that no proper attention is paid to cultivation. in this district. The average outturn realised is 25 kalams per acre which is about one-third of the yield per acre in the Aduturai Farm and one-fourth of the yield per acre in Spain and Japan. The reason for this low outturn is the deficiency of the bulk of the soil of the delta in the two vital elements, nitrogen and phosphoric acid, which are essential for the successful raising of paddy. The existing manurial supplies are totally insufficient to replace the elements taken off the lands by the crops raised and there has been a gradual deterioration of the soil which has gone on for centuries. It is necessary that more attention should be paid to the proper manuring of the lands if the average outturn of the district is to be anything like what it ought to be. Can the ryot repair the damage done in the course of centuries and secure a better outturn in the immediate future without much extra expense? He can, if he follows the advice of the Tanjore District Agricultural Association. He can increase the av rage yield of the district by over a hundred percent even in the course of two years.

Manuring successive crops of rice with ammonium sulphate and super phosphate

In the Tanjore delta which has nearly a million acres unuer irrigated rice, the rice growers are in the habit of applying ammonium sulphate to their rice crop without the addition of any organic matter. This was particularly so during the post war boom period of 1919-1929, when paddy was selling at Rs 3 to Rs. 3-12-0 a kalam of 64 lb. Later on there were complaints that the yields of rice crop declined in fields that received ammonium sulphate. Invariably such statements were made by persons who applied a bag (80 lb.) of ammonium sulphate to one crop and stopped applying it to the following crop. It might be that the reduction in yield was the result of discontinuance of manuring. There was also no experimental evidence to declare that continued application of an artificial manure like ammonium sulphate really brought down the yield of rice. With a view to find out the effect of continued applications of ammonium. sulphate on the rice crop, the following experiment was designed and con- ducted at the Agricultural Research Station, Aduturai in the Tanjore district for a period of five years from 1935-36 to 1940-41.

Breeding for resistance toPiricularia Oryzae in rice (O. Sativa)

The disease,piricularia, was first noticed in Madras when it appeared in an epidemic form attacking a particular variety of rice,korangusamba, in portions of the Tanjore district. The studies on the fungus by the Mycologist had shown that there was a wide range of susceptibility of rice varieties to the disease, some remaining practically immune while varieties like the Tanjore one showing 70 to 80 per cent. incidence.