Caste and Race in India c9.77

c9.77

(a) The Pre-Dravida type: The characteristic representatives of this type inhabit mostly the jungles of Southern India. They are also found in Western India, in the hilly country of Central India, in Rajputana, and the United Provinces, everywhere penetrating like a wedge. Such a distribution makes it probable that these peoples were the first occupants of Southern India. Being pressed by later immigrants they seem to have taken to the hills and jungles, or again managed to become low members of the social polity of the immigrants. The immigrants who pressed upon them were the people of the Dravida type. Hence the name of the type under consideration. If we regard the Irula, the Kadir, the Kanikar, the Paniyan and the like as the best representatives of this type, its physical characteristics may be thus summed up: The head is long, the cephalic index being generally below 75; the nose broad, the nasal index being always above 80. The Bhil and the Katkari of Western India are members of this racial stock. The Musahar, the Pasi, the Chamar, and the low castes in general of the United Provinces belong to the same type. From the fact that among the Kanikars of the hills the system of inheritance is from father to son, only a portion of the personal property being given to the nephew, while among those of the plains an equal distribution of one's self-acquired property is made between the sons and the nephews,¹ it is reasonable to assume that the pre-Dravida people were essentially patrilineal. When they moved northwards they seem to have imbibed many of the items of the Dravidian culture. They carried with them the practice of raising megalithic tombs and monuments, which are found in the Central Provinces, Eastern Rajputana, and the Mirzapur District of the United Provinces. They spoke Dravidian languages; for some of the names of the villages in the Central Provinces end in a Canarese termination² and some village-names in the districts of Gaya and Mirzapur are distinctly Dravidian.³ As for social organization they seem to have carried the practice of cross-cousin marriage, which now exists among them for the most part as a survival.¹