Note 60 — M (Continued)

The Muduvars do not believe themselves to be indigenous to the hills; the legend, handed down from father to son, is that they originally lived in Madura. Owing to troubles, or a war in which the Pāndyan Rāja of the times was engaged, they fled to the hills. When at Bōdināyakanūr, the pregnant women (or, as some say, a pregnant woman) were left behind, and eventually went with the offspring to the Nīlgiris, while the bulk of the tribe came to the High Range of North Travancore. There is supposed to be enmity between these rather vague Nīlgiri people and the Muduvars. The Nīlgiri people are said occasionally to visit Bōdināyakanūr, but, if by chance they are met by Muduvars, there is no speech between them, though each is supposed instinctively or intuitively to recognise the presence of the other. Those that came to the High Range carried their children up the ghāts on their backs, and it was thereupon decided to name the tribe Muduvar, or back people. According to another tradition, when they left Madura, they carried with them on their back the image of the goddess Mīnākshi, and brought it to Nēriyamangalam. It is stated by Mr. P. E. Conner60 that the Muduvars “rank high in point of precedency among the hill tribes. They were originally Vellalās, tradition representing them as having accompanied some of the Madura princes to the Travancore hills.” The approximate time of the exodus from Madura cannot even be guessed by any of the tribe, but it was possibly at the time when the Pāndyan Rājas entered the south, or more probably when the Telugu Naickers took possession of Bōdināyakanūr in the fourteenth century. It has also been suggested that the Muduvars were driven to the hills by the Muhammadan invaders in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Judging from the two distinct types of countenance, their language, and their curious mixture of customs, I hazard the conjecture that, when they arrived on the hills, they found a small tribe in possession, with whom they subsequently intermarried, this tribe having affinities with the west coast, while the new arrivals were connected with the east.