Note 5 — N

In Mysore numbers of Oddēs are now permanently settled in the outskirts of large towns, where both sexes find employment as sweepers, etc., in connection with sanitation and conservancy. Some Oddēs are, at the present time (1908), employed at the Mysore manganese mines. The tribe is often found concerting with the Korachas, Koramas, and other predatory classes in committing dacoities and robberies, and it has passed into a proverb that they would rather bear any amount of bodily torture than confess or disclose the truth regarding the crimes attributed to them. Some Oddēs have settled down as agriculturists and contractors, and some are very prosperous. For example, there are a few Oddēs near Kuppam in the North Arcot district, whose credit is so good that any rich merchant would advance them large sums of money. A wealthy Oddē, worth nearly a lakh of rupees, worried my assistant for half an anna, wherewith to purchase some betel leaf. It is recorded by Bishop Whitehead,5 in the diary of a tour in the Nizam’s Dominions, that, at Khammamett, “the Waddas who have become Christians have for some time past possessed land and cattle of their own, and are well-to-do people. One of the headmen, who was presented to me after service, said that he had 80 acres of land of his own.”