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A Christian Caste in Hindu Society: ReligiousLeadership and Social Conict among theParavas of Southern Tamilnadu

S. B. Kaufmann

Modern Asian Studies / Volume 15 / Issue 02 / April 1981, pp 203 - 234DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00007058, Published online: 28 November 2008

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0026749X00007058

How to cite this article:S. B. Kaufmann (1981). A Christian Caste in Hindu Society: ReligiousLeadership and Social Conict among the Paravas of Southern Tamilnadu.Modern Asian Studies, 15, pp 203-234 doi:10.1017/S0026749X00007058

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Modern Asian Studies, 15, 2 (1981), pp. 203-234. Printed in Great Britain.

A Christian Caste in Hindu Society:Religious Leadership and Social Conflict

among the Paravas of Southern Tamilnadu

S. B. KAUFMANN

Clare Hall, Cambridge

Introduction

Since the nineteenth century scholars have depicted Indian castes astimeless, fixed communities whose customs, rituals, and occupationalspecialities evolved at an unidentifiable point in the distant past. It hasnow been shown, however, that many jatis are of relatively recent origin,and historians have been able to trace the economic, political, andreligious changes which acted to form individual caste groups during thecolonial period.1 Several recent works on south India have argued thatthe agglomerations of artisans and cultivators described as castes inBritish ethnographies and Census reports had no real cohesion and wereoften no more than unstable political alliances or 'administrative fic-tions'. In this view it was the misconceived European notion of castes asrigid, competing corporations which stimulated the formation of manysouth Indian castes after 1880.2

The Paravas of southern Tamilnadu who form the subject of thispaper were not an artificial constituency born out of political oppor-tunism, but an endogamous, cohesive jati with uniform rites and domes-tic customs and strong internal leadership. Their consolidation began

Abbreviations: BOR, Board of Revenue; JT, Jati Thalavan (Parava caste headman);MMA, Madura Mission Archives (Archives of the Jesuit missions in southern Tamil-nadu, located at Sacred Heart College, Shembaganur, Madura District); PCD, ParavaCaste Documents collection, Tuticorin; TCR, Tirunelveli Collectorate Records; TNA,Tamil Nadu Archives, Madras.

I am grateful to the Managers of the Smuts Memorial Fund, the Worts TravellingScholars Fund, the Cambridge Historical Society, and to New Hall, Cambridge whosegenerous grants enabled me to carry out research in India during 1976 and 1977.

1 See, for example, Frank F. Conlon, A Caste in a Changing World: The ChitrapurSaraswat Brahmans, 1700-1935 (Berkeley, 1977).

2 David Washbrook, 'The Development of Caste Organisation in South India 1880 to1925', in C. J. Baker and D. A. Washbrook (eds), South India: Political Institutions andPolitical Change 1880-1940 (Delhi, 1975), pp. 150-203.

0026-749X/81/0404-0301S02.00 © 1981 Cambridge University Press

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204 S. B. KAUFMANN

well before the colonial period, and they possessed highly organizedcaste institutions by the sixteenth century A.D. The paradox here is thatthe Paravas are all Roman Catholics rather than Hindus. They wereconverted to Christianity in the 1530s and 1540s by missionaries underthe jurisdiction of the Portuguese ecclesiastical hierarchy (the 'Pad-roadd') based in Goa.3 Under these evangelists the Paravas' RomanCatholic rites and doctrines came to reinforce their Hindu caste struc-ture. It is rare in south Indian agrarian society for jatis to be organizedon a regional basis, with hereditary caste headmen and assemblies ofelders holding power over the group as a whole. The Paravas belong to acategory of artisans, traders, and other specialized castes with relativelystrong corporate organization.4 The group is all the more striking, then,in that while unanimously Christian, their cohesion as ajati and theirsystem of caste leadership were more elaborate and longer-lived thanthose of most Hindu groups in south India.

This paper will ask how the Paravas' tight caste structure was main-tained during the colonial period, and how the group's social organiza-tion was influenced by its role as a client community under Europeanpowers. This bond between colonial patrons and Parava caste leadersdeveloped within the special conditions of the economy of coastal Tamil-nadu. From ancient times the group operated the famous pearlingindustry centred in the Gulf of Manaar between southeastern Tamil-nadu and Ceylon.5 Pearl diving demanded sophisticated maritime skillsand a command of specialized information about the location andtending of the pearl oyster beds in the region. Each colonial powerrecognized that it could cream off the profits of the pearl trade mosteffectively by building up the authority of Parava caste headmen andvillage elders. These notables would then possess the power and prestigerequired to recruit and discipline divers and oversee the official divingsessions or 'fisheries'. Therefore one aim of this paper is to trace therelationship between secular political power and religious leadershipwithin the south Indian caste system.

There is a wider aim here as well. In addition to the pearl industry this

3 On the Padroado Real (royal patronage), which gave Portugal the right to controlRoman Catholic churches overseas, see C. R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire1413-1825 (London, 1969), pp. 228-33.

4 Wash brook, 'The Development of Caste Organisation', pp. 150-75; EdgarThurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India (Madras, 1909), VI, pp. 333-4.

s James Steuart, An Account of the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon (Colombo, 1843); JamesHornell, The Indian Pearl Fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar and Palk Bay. Madras FisheriesBureau, Bulletin xvi (Madras, 1922); S. Arunachalam, The History of the Pearl Fishery ofthe Tamil Coast (Annamalainagar, 1952).



A CHRISTIAN CASTE IN HINDU SOCIETY 2O5

region was enriched by long-standing networks of overseas trade intextiles and other commodities. During the colonial period the Paravaswere important brokers and entrepreneurs in this maritime tradingsystem. Therefore a study of the Paravas sheds light on the relationshipbetween south Indian caste institutions and changes within the regionaleconomy. The emphasis on agrarian society in recent studies of the southhas produced a widespread assumption that the south Indian economywas universally poor, parochial, and sharply stratified in the colonialperiod, except in small tracts of irrigated cash cropping.6 This study isset within an entirely different economy. The maritime zone's fishingand thriving overseas commerce helped to shape social relationshipswhich differed greatly from those found in the agricultural regions of thesouth.

Finally it will be argued that the Paravas developed exceptionallystrong caste institutions because—like many other Christian groups—they operated according to the same notions of caste rank and cere-monial precedence which prevailed among most Hindus in the south. Inparticular the Paravas were influenced by the widely shared idea thatritual status in Indian society is negotiable, that the standing of groupsand families in local schemes of rank and precedence is open to constantchallenge and readjustment. This meant that groups regularly sought toimprove their position in local caste hierarchies by recruiting prestigiousreligious specialists, by supporting shrines, and by force majeure. TheParavas understood caste rank in much the same way as the TamilHindus around them. By allocating ritual privileges or 'honours' (Tarn.mariyatai) in their churches and religious festivals the Paravas confirmedand redefined relationships of precedence and ritual subordination verymuch as Hindus did through temple festivals (utsavams) and othercorporate Hindu rites.7

Caste Formation and Ritual Leadership

The Paravas, then, are a body of fishermen, pearl divers, fish dealers,and seaborne traders settled in sixty or more hamlets and villages alongthe Tamil coast from Kilakarai in Ramnad district to Kaniyakumari,

6 D. A. Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Madras Presidency i8yo-iQ20(Cambridge, 1976), pp. 64-100.

7 The treatment of'honours systems' in this paper is based on Arjun Appadurai andCarol Appadurai Breckenridge, 'The south Indian temple: authority, honour andredistribution', Contributions to Indian Sociology, 10:2 (n.s.) (1976), 187-209.



2O6 S. B. KAUFMANN

and then up the Keralan coast almost as far as Trivandrum (see map).8

Most of these settlements are clustered along the shore at the fringes ofmore densely settled agricultural areas. Inhabited only by Paravas,these villages are interspersed with separate Muslim fishing and tradingsettlements. Numerous Hindu and Christian Nadar (Shanar) cultiva-tors live in separate inland villages nearby, and there are Parayan cheris(untouchable hamlets) located at the outskirts of most of these centres.There has also been a large population of Paravas in the major commer-cial and industrial town of Tuticorin since the 1580s. The total Paravapopulation was roughly 30,000 in i860 and 50,000 in 1915.9

The evidence suggests that the Paravas' distinctive identity andstrong caste institutions began to emerge well before the colonial period.Like the Europeans, the early Pandya rulers of the Tamil countryrequired the collaboration of specialized fishing groups to operate thepearling industry for them. The Pandyas and their tributary chiefsapparently treated the Paravas as a distinct community, receivingperiodic levies from Parava caste notables who managed the fisheriesand received set shares of pearling revenues.10 The Paravas' conversionto Christianity took place at the climax of a savage maritime war(1527-39) between the Portuguese and Muslim naval forces allied withthe Zamorin of Calicut. In 1532 a delegation of seventy Paravasappealed to the Portuguese authorities at Cochin for protection againsttheir long-standing rivals, the Lebbai Muslim divers patronized by localHindu and Muslim chieftains. The Portuguese immediately recognizedthe value of a client community allied to their interests in the struggle tocontrol the Tirunelveli pearl revenues. A party ofPadroado clerics sailedto the southeast coast, and within months 20,000 baptisms werereported among Paravas in thirty maritime villages.11

8 Small groups of Paravas had also settled in inland market centres such as Alvartir-unageri and Pettai by the 1650s. [Fr. A. Caussanel, S.J.] 'Historical Notes—TinnevellyDistrict' MS, n.d. [1925?], pp. 21-37, MMA.

9 Figures compiled from H. R. Pate, Tinnevelly, vol. 1, Madras District Gazetteers(Madras, 1917), p. 121; Madras Catholic Directory for 1875, 1890, 1896; Fr. L. Verdier,SJ. 'Memoire sur la caste des Paravers', report dated Palamcottah, i860 (typescriptcopy) in Lettres de la nouvelle mission du Madure (bound vols) I, pp. 83-110, MMA.

10 Stephen C. Motha, A Short History of the Jathithalaimai or the Chieftainship of theBharathars (Tuticorin, n.d. [1926?]). Bharatha[r] is a common English variant ofParava.

" C . R. De Silva, 'The Portuguese and Pearl Fishing offSouth India and Sri Lanka',South Asia I : i (n.s.) (1978), 14-28; Pate, Tinnevelly, pp. 230-1; Daniello Bartoli,Dell'istoria della Compagnia di Gesd: L'Asia. 3 vols (Milano, 1831), I, p. 49. On the Paravas'conversion, see Georg Schurhammer, Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times, vol. II, India1541-1545 (trans. M. J. Costelloe) (Rome, 1977), pp. 260-6; R. Caldwell, A Political andGeneral History of the District of Tinnevelly (Madras, 1881), p. 68; Simon Casie Chitty,



A CHRISTIAN CASTE IN HINDU SOCIETY 2 0 7

Nazareth yKayalpatanamVirapandiyanpatanamTiruccenturlandalei

KulasekarapatanamManapad

Kaniyakumari(C. Comorin)

TIRUNELVELIDISTRICT

10 miles 20 miles

Scale



208 S. B. KAUFMANN

The original Parava delegation was led by a notable known asVikirama Aditha Pandya. His precise function within the caste is notclear, but the implication of the Pandya title is that he was seen as asenior elder or caste headman (Tarn, jati thalavan) claiming authorityfrom early Pandya rulers, and holding authority equivalent to that of a'little king' or chieftain.12 In the course of the Paravas' mass conversionto Christianity Vikirama Pandya pledged to organize pearl diving onbehalf of the Portuguese. He was then baptized and endowed with animposing string of aristocratic Portuguese titles. As Senhor Senhor DomJoao da Cruz, this first Christian jati thalavan held his post from 1543 to1553 as the Paravas' chief caste notable and recognized intermediarywith the Portuguese. This headman was succeeded by a total of twenty-one Parava caste headmen, all known to the Paravas as jati thalavan—head of the caste—and all descended from the family of the originalDom Joao da Cruz.13 The Portuguese also converted a large body ofsubordinate caste elders based in each of the Parava settlements. Fromhis official seat in Tuticorin, the jati thalavan presided over this elabor-ate caste hierarchy until the 1920s. All the main Parava villages con-tained one or more subordinate notables: adapans in villages from Kila-karai to the major centre of Manapad; pattangattis on the coast south ofManapad; and moupans in inland Parava settlements.14 In addition thegroup possessed their own dependent service communities of barbersand washermen.

A remarkable series of written communications between the jatithalavan and his village notables has survived in the keeping of the lastheadman's family in Tuticorin. Dating from about 1750 to 1935, thesedocuments vividly illustrate the blend of religious authority and controlover economic concerns within the community which these notablesheld during the colonial period. They show that throughout the nine-teenth century the elders reported regularly to the jati thalavan oneconomic, social, and ritual matters in their localities. The caste head-man frequently adjudicated in disputes over matters of ceremony and

'Remarks on the Origin and History of the Parawas', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, IV(1837), p. 132.

12 Milestones in Bharatha Progress: A Brief History of the Conference Movement. Publishedon the Occasion of the Ninth Bharatha Conference held on the 7, 8 and 9 January 1938(Colombo, 1938), p. 3.

13 'Senhor Senhor' is an abbreviated form of Senhor dos Senhores, 'principal among thenotables'. A complete listing of Parava jati thalavans with their dates of office is given inMotha, Jathilhalaimai.

14 Some other Tamil groups use these terms. For derivations see M. D. Raghavan,The Karava of Ceylon: Society and Culture (Colombo, 1961), p. 31; Parathan (Parava casteassociation journal), Colombo, 1936, p. 2.



A CHRISTIAN CASTE IN HINDU SOCIETY 2OO,

commercial practice, and the notables applied for his official sanction inmarriages and the appointment of new office-holders. With the help oflesser office-holders (sitatis), the village elders collected kanikkai (fees ortaxes) from each Parava household and forwarded these sums to the jatithalavan. The Parava caste documents also contain valuable evidenceabout internal religious disputes which broke out among the Paravasafter 1839, and much of the discussion which follows is based on thismaterial.15

The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier (1506-52; canonized 1621)reached the Tirunelveli coast in 1542, ten years after the Paravas'tactical profession of Christianity. Directed to consolidate the newconverts' attachment to the Portuguese and to instruct them inChristian doctrine, he built a number of chapels and baptized orre-baptized several thousand Paravas.16 It is remarkable that Xavier's-mission left such a lasting mark on the group's traditions and obser-vances: he spent less than two years in the Parava centres, and hisreligious instruction consisted mainly in teaching the inhabitants of eachvillage to recite the Creed, the Ave, and the Pater Noster, which he hadmemorized syllable by syllable in highly inaccurate Tamil.17 Nonethe-less Xavier's Padroado successors established such a successful bondbetween the group's Christian ritual organization and their existingtraditions and economic concerns that they retained their Christianaffiliation for the next 400 years. Christianity became in effect a 'castelifestyle' for the Paravas. Francis Xavier himself became a focus for thegroup's sense of community and shared ritual life, much like a caste deityor sanctified spiritual preceptor among Hindus.18

15 This collection of some 500 Tamil, Dutch, French, and English manuscripts isdesignated here PCD. They include reports on the operation of the pearl fisheries as wellas letters to and from the jati thalavan on social, religious, and financial matters. Mostare dated between 1850 and 1935, but there are also pearling records and sanadsconfirming the succession of caste notables dating from c. 1750. The Paravas' Christianbarbers and Hindu washermen performed functions analagous to those of Hindu servicecommunities, carrying caste insignia in processions and playing an important part inmarriage, birth, puberty, and death rituals. In the nineteenth century the Paravas alsohad at least two regional assemblies (nattus) which met at regular intervals to deal withreligious and commercial matters affecting specified groups of Parava villages.

16 Schurhammer, Francis Xavier, II, pp. 300-10; H. J. Coleridge (ed.), The Life andLetters of St. Francis Xavier, 2 vols (London, 1881), I, pp. 151-87.

17 Ibid., pp. 151-3; Schurhammer, Francis Xavier, II, pp. 308-9. The Paravas' distinc-tive Portuguese names date from this period. They still use Christian forenames roughlytranslated into Tamil (Susai for Joseph, Suroni for Jerome, Xaverimuthu for Xavier,etc.) Their Portuguese surnames (Fernando, Roche, Miranda, deRose, Costa, etc.)mark offexogamous descent groups within the jati.

18 Throughout the colonial period families of Parava caste notables claimed an



2IO S. B. KAUFMANN

The rituals and church festivals created for the Paravas by thePortuguese specifically confirmed and underlined the authority of thecaste headman and lesser notables. They emphasized the jati thalavan'srole as 'little king' and head of the caste, giving him a role in the Paravas'religious life which was analagous to the function of Hindu chiefs andrulers as protectors and chief donors [jajamanas] in Hindu shrines.Parava caste histories stress the royal 'Pandya' origins of the jati thala-van,19 and in the nineteenth century disapproving Jesuit missionariesregularly referred to the conventions of kingship which centred on thejati thalavan. One of them remarked in 1841:

A l'exemple des autres Indiens, ils aiment a se considerer comme une caste; dontils se portent bien haut l'honneur et les interets;... ils ne sont pas faches de jouera la royaute, et de voir dans leur chef de caste une ombre de roi . . . Ce fantomede roi nomme, et par consequent tient dans sa main, les chefs des divers villageset forme ainsi une organisation generale qui lui donne une grande puissance surce pauvre peuple.20

The jati thalavan's standing was displayed above all through hisleading position in the cult of the Paravas' special patroness, an appari-tion of the Virgin known as Our Lady of Snows. The group's most sacredritual object has long been a wooden statue of the Virgin in thisincarnation. The figure was placed in the main Parava church atTuticorin in 1582, when the town became the Portuguese commercialheadquarters in the south. This church of Our Lady of Snows is knowncolloquially as the Periyakovil (Tarn, 'great church') or Madakovil('Mother' or 'Virgin Mary church'). The Virgin-patroness took on evengreater importance for the Paravas than the figure of St Francis, and herposition can be compared with that of a Hindu tutelary goddess.21

ancestral connection with St Francis. For example, one important lineage still believethat they are descendants of a Goan catechist who accompanied St Francis to Tirunel-veli, while their detractor's insist that this figure was really only the saint's cook and bodyservant. Many of the Paravas' St Francis legends originated as Hindu folk traditions.Near Manapad there is a shrine in a cave said to have been inhabited by the saint, butlocal Hindus had long venerated the cave as the birthplace of a deified hero (virulu). Theease with which Roman Catholic beliefs fused with existing folk traditions was one of thePadroado's great strengths in building up Christian identity among south Indian con-verts. See J. M. Villavarayan, The Diocese of Kottar. A Review of ils Growth (Nagercoil,

'956)>PP- l 6 - ' 7 -19 E.g. Swarnam Edward (ed.), Pandiya Vamsa Parambarai (Tamil) (Madurai, 1911);

Directory of the Diocese of Tuticorin. Golden Jubilee Souvenir (1923-1973) (Tamil) (Tuticorin,1973). PP- I 0 - ' 8 -

2 0 J . Bertrand, Leltres edifiantes el curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Madure', 2 vols (Paris,1865), II, p. 24.

2 ' The name derives from the original church of Our Lady of Snows, a fourth-centuryRoman basilica built on the site of a miraculous mid-summer fall of snow. The August



A CHRISTIAN CASTE IN HINDU SOCIETY 211

Documents stored in the Periyakovil contained elaborate lists of the marksof ceremonial precedence held by the jati thalavan in the cult of OurLady of Snows. By the 1620s, for example, it was established that duringmass, the jati thalavan would occupy a special seat in church directlybelow the statue, and he alone held the right to have the statue unveiledand adorned with jewels during his installation and during marriages inhis family.22

Most importantly, the great celebrations known as Golden Car festi-vals which were dedicated to the patroness and staged near her shrine inTuticorin were arranged to give special prominence to the group's castenotables. Accounts of the feast dating from the early colonial period upto the 1930s show how closely the Paravas followed Hindu models inconstructing a system of graded privileges or 'honours' to express rela-tionships of primacy and rank within the community. These symbolicrights clearly resembled those which featured in disputes over cere-monial precedence among Hindus throughout the colonial period.23

Among the Paravas the Golden Car festivals became a major provingground in comparable battles over ceremonial privileges in the nine-teenth century, as the next sections will show. The festival took itsmodern form in 1720 when a group of Parava magnates including thejati thalavan's family used the wealth derived from trade with Ceylon tosponsor a lavish ten-day celebration in honour of Our Lady of Snows.After ten days of processions and masses the devotees staged a finalpublic rite which featured the dragging of a huge wheeled ter (wheeledceremonial chariot or 'car') bearing the statue through the streetssurrounding the Periyakovil. At intervals the celebrants would stop the terfor hymns, prayers, and the distribution of flowers from the statue'sgarlands.24

This is still the basic pattern of events which can be observed at theGolden Car festival today.25 With the approval of the Padroado the

festival of Our Lady of Snows commemorates this event. J. M. Ladislaus Gomez, PictorialSouvenir of the Golden Car of Our Lady of Snows Tuticorin (Tuticorin, 1969), pp. 7—11.

22 1Q47 Our Lady of Snows Festival Souvenir Volume (Tuticorin, 1947).2 3 Appadurai and Breckenridge, 'The south Indian temple', p. 197; J . S. F. Macken-

zie, 'Caste Insignia', The Indian Antiquary, IV: xlviii (1875), 344~6; Marie-LouiseReiniche, Les dieux el les hommes. Elude des cultes d'un village du Tirunelveli Inde du sud (Paris,1979), p. 96; Andre Beteille, 'Social Organization of Temples in a Tanjore Village',History ofReligions, 5:1 (1965), 9 0 - 1 ; Brenda E. F. Beck, Peasant Society in Konku. A Study ofRight and Left Subcastes in South India (Vancouver, 1972), p. 79.

2 4 Gomez, Pictorial Souvenir, p. 83.2 5 The vast 75-foot ter or Golden Car in use today was built in 1806 with funds

provided by the jat i thalavan and other wealthy Paravas. S. M. Diaz, 1977 Golden CarFestival Souvenir (Tuticorin, 1977). At present the drawing of the ter takes place every 13



2 12 S. B. KAUFMANN

trappings and organization of the festival were specifically patterned onthe Hindu utsavams staged at the great Sri Subramanyasami temple atTiruccentur, 24 miles from Tuticorin. The handing out of flowers todevotees resembles the distribution ofprasatam during Hindu rites, andthe use of ters and capparams (platforms carrying sacred emblems) arefeatures of south Indian Hindu festivals appropriated by Roman Catho-lic converts throughout Tamilnadu.26 In the last century caste his-torians claimed that the group held important corporate privileges atTiruccentur before they became Christians, and that thejati thalavanhad once held the right to give the first symbolic pull to the ter on whichthe processional image of the deity (the utsavavigraham) was mountedduring the main annual feast.27 Actually it is unlikely that Paravanotables ever held such a prestigious 'honour' at Tiruccentur. Insteadthey were probably allowed only a peripheral share at major Hindushrines. It follows, then, that Christianity actually offered the group acentral role in their own Hindu-style festival rites which they would nothave held before their conversion.

One of the jati thalavan's most jealously guarded privileges in theGolden Car festival was the right to give the first pull to the ropedrawing the ter,28 and he and the circle of rich traders and caste notablesyears during the August feast of Our Lady of Snows. The festival attracts crowds of over50,000. Church functionaries adorn the chariot with imported gold leaf, garlands, andstatues of saints, with the figure of the Virgin enthroned at the top. At the climax of thecelebration, ecstatic devotees seize cables attached to the ter and drag it for hoursthrough the streets of the town (Observed during a visit to the festival in August, 1977.)

26 On Hindu festival rites see F. Clothey, 'Skanda-Sasti: A Festival in Tamil India',History of Religions 8:3 (1969), 246-7; Reiniche, Les dieux el les hommes, pp. 100-11;Appadurai and Breckenridge, 'The south Indian temple', pp. 194-5. The Jesuitmissionary Robert de Nobili (1577—1656) pioneered the technique of adapting Hinduvocabulary, symbols, and observances for use by south Indian converts. See S.Rajamanickam, The First Oriental Scholar (Tirunelveli, 1972); Bror Tiliander, Christianand Hindu Terminology: A Study of their Mutual Relations with Special Reference to the Tamil Area(Uppsala, 1974), pp. 27-9, 57, 107, 183, 216-24, 283-6.

2 7 ig$j Our Lady of Snows Festival Souvenir Volume. The tradition of Parava honours atTiruccentur is also cited in an edition of the Tamil folk epic Shenbagaraamam Pallu(composed c. 1630-85) published by a Parava caste historian in 1947. See M. J.Kaalingaraayar (ed.), Shenbagaraamam Pallu (Tamil) 2nd edn (Nagercoil), pp. 4, 30-1.The famous goddess shrine at Kaniyakumari is another reference point for the group.Even today the only obviously non-Christian names still used by the Paravas areVillavarayan, Poobalarayan and Rayan (derived from arayan, a caste name for severalHindu fishing groups). The three titles are said to designate the descendants of familieswho held prestigious 'honours' at Kaniyakumari before the Paravas' conversion toChristianity. Interviews, Kaniyakumari, September 1977.

2 8 This 'kingly' honour was typically held by warrior-chiefs such as the Tamilpoligars. In the nineteenth century a descendant of one of the poligar lineages, the raja ofEttiapuram, gave the first pull to the ter at the Kalugumalai temple in his zamindari ineastern Tirunelveli. Interviews, Tirunelveli, August 1977.




close to him held all the prestigious roles as patrons and donors in theevent. A set of twenty-one distinctive painted banners resembling Hinduprocession flags were kept in the jati thalavan's house: these wereformally handed over to Parava caste barbers who acted as bannercarriers during the festival. The Golden Car processions were alsorequired to stop for special prayers at apantal erected in front of the casteheadman's house. These interludes were similar to the tirukkans (ritualhalts) staged during Hindu utsavam processions at the houses of promi-nent festival donors.29

Parava Caste Leadership and the Tirunelveli Trade Booms

This essentially Hindu system of honours and precedence wasstrengthened and expanded during the period of commercial expansionwhich began when the Dutch seized Tuticorin from the Portuguese in1658. Large numbers of Paravas profited from the increase in textileexports from Tuticorin and other Parava centres which the Dutch usedas factories and commercial entrepots.30 The rise in cargo traffic in theseports led to a new demand for dock hands and skilled pilots andlightermen. These were needs which the Paravas were well qualified tofill. The group had a long tradition of mobility, migrating regularlyfrom Tirunelveli to the Ceylon pearl fisheries, and moving betweendifferent maritime occupations—fishing, pearling, chank (conch shell)diving, and crewing in coastal trading craft. Therefore many Paravaswere able to use the opportunities provided by the commercial boom,and moved from employment as dock labourers into maritime trade.Some worked as tindals (masters) of coastal boats, and the most enter-prising began to trade in their own right, investing in small cargoes oftextiles in the port-to-port trade which opened up between Tirunelveliand Ceylon. Parava caste notables had an important advantage in theseventures because their fees for ritual services and payments for oversee-ing the pearl fisheries provided them with a small but valuable capitalbase. At the same time the jati thalavan and his notables continued to

29 Appadurai and Breckenridge, 'The south Indian temple', pp . 194-5. The Paravas'banners and ceremonial regalia, including a sunshade, bronze shield, and silk umbrella,can still be seen in the home of the jat i thalavan's descendants, the Mothas of Tuticorin. Iam extremely grateful to them for access to the regalia and Parava caste documents.

3 0 Tuticorin (estimated population 3,000 in 1664) became the principal Dutchentrepot on the southeast coast. John Nieuhoff, Voyages and Travels into Brazil and the EastIndies, in A. and j . Churchill (eds),A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1704), II,p. 293; Pate, Tinnevelly, pp. 442-4.



2 14 S- B - KAUFMANN

provide the expertise required to run the pearling industry, and theDutch endorsed their powers and prestige as the Portuguese haddone.31

As these commercial connections with Ceylon became the most profi-table activity open to the Paravas, participation in overseas trade initself became a reference point in the Paravas' status system. Castenotables predominated in the group's trade to Ceylon, and so thedistinction between trading families and the mass of fishermen andlabourers emerged as the most important division within the com-munity. By the early eighteenth century ritual and social pre-eminenceamong the Paravas came to be defined in terms of commercial activity.A new title, mejaikarar, became the usual designation for the dominantTuticorin lineages connected with the jati thalavan's family. This statuscategory rapidly became an endogamous subdivision within the jati:only recognized mejaikarar could marry with the headman's lineage, andthe mass of dependent, ritually inferior Paravas belonged to a separatesubdivision known as kamarakkarar.32

The Dutch ceded Tuticorin to the English East India Company in1825. After a period of decline in the late eighteenth and early nine-teenth centuries, in the 1830s British officials reported a dramaticupsurge in shipping and commerce in Tuticorin and many otherTirunelveli ports. This expansion was based on the nineteenth-centurycotton boom which made Tuticorin the chief cotton port in south Indiaby 1845, and the second largest port in the Madras Presidency by theend of the century.33 The town was an important regional mart forjaggery (palm sugar), fish, and other Tirunelveli commodities, but itfunctioned principally as an export centre for cotton produced in the

3 1 T C R vol. 7968/110/30 August 1839/TNA; Nieuhoff, Voyages and Travels, I I , p. 295;James Hornell , The Sacred Chank of India. Madras Fisheries Bureau, Bulletin No. 7(Madras , 1914), pp. 8-12. An MS sanadm Dutch, dated 9 J u n e 1799 and signed by theDutch governor of Ceylon, confirms the succession of the jat i thalavan: PCD. On theendorsement of Parava village notables by the Dutch, see Motha, Jathithalaimai, pp . 8-9.

3 2 Mejaikarar (from Tarn, mejai: table) suggests persons entitled to dine at the head-man's table, hence those of the same ritual standing as the jat i thalavan. Verdier's'Memoire ' states: 'Les nobles [mejaikarar] seuls ont le droit d'asseoir a la table ou le chef[jati thalavan] prend son festin.' See Chitty, 'History of the Parawas ' , pp. 133-4; Pate>Tinnevelly, p. 123. T h e terms are used primarily in Tuticorin, but all Parava settlementsobserved the same distinction between ritually inferior fishermen and superior tradingfamilies (from whom village adapans, sitatis, and pattangattis were d rawn) .

3 3 T r a d e in Tuticorin increased ten-fold in sixty years. The town's population wasabout 4,300 in 1839; 10,500 in 1871; 16,300 in 1881; 25,100 in 1891; 28,000 in 1901; and40,200 in 1911. TCR vol. 7968/158/19 December 1839/TNA; Census of India 1911, vol.XII,-pt ii, pp. 8-14; TCR vol. 7976/85/11 April 1848/TNA; TCR vol. 7973/244/5November 1845/TNA; Pate, Tinnevelly, pp. 20, 447-8.




southern districts and shipped from Tuticorin to Ceylon for re-export toEurope and other overseas markets.34

The Parava commercial families' involvement in pearling and small-scale textile trade provided a spring-board into this important newtraffic, and large numbers of mejaikarar began to take part in the Ceyloncotton trade. By the late 1830s many of these Parava traders spentseveral months of the year in Ceylon, and some were connected withcommercial concerns in Madras and Madura. Large numbers of theseParava traders were from Tuticorin, but men from Manapad and otherlocalities also established themselves in Ceylon before 1850, alwaysmaintaining contact with their home villages in Tirunelveli.35 TheParavas' mobility and commercial diversity were described in 1839:

De riches negocians se sont empares depuis bien des annees du commerce ducoton, unique branche d'industrie qui pourrait faire vivre [the Paravas].Quelques-uns de ceux-ci, pour soutenir leur existance, vont chaque jour a lapeche des coquillages [chanks] genre du travail fort penible, et qui fournit toutou plus la nourriture quotidienne. Les autres vont chaque annee a Colombo, aMadras, a Goa, ou ailleurs pour y faire le trafic des toiles, ou le metier degagne-petit. Us reviennent ensuite manger au sein de leurs families le produit deleurs longues courses.36

In addition to their role as shippers and dealers, Paravas were muchin demand as pilots, lightermen, and cargo handlers as trade continuedto expand in Tuticorin and other centres.37 Parava labourers flocked toTuticorin to take advantage of these opportunities, and in most casesthey moved into areas of employment controlled by mejaikarar magnates.They shipped on country craft owned by mejai traders; they worked inconstruction projects under Parava contractors; and they joined lightercrews and stevedore gangs recruited by the jati thalavan and othermejaikarar under agreements to supply labourers to the harbour authori-ties and shipping concerns. This contrasted sharply with the trend inrural areas where town migration and the availability of cash wagesgenerally eroded the authority of caste leaders and other 'traditional'elites in the nineteenth century. Among the Paravas the increaseddemand for labour actually confirmed the position of the dominant

3 4 Pate, Tinnevelly, p. 447.3 5 T C R vol. 7968/158/19 December 1839/TNA; T C R vol. 4717/Extr. Proceedings

Madras BOR/13 April 1835/TNA; T C R vol. 7958/728/13 September 1839/TNA; T C Rvol. 7979/130/23 July 1852/TNA.

3 6 Lettres des nouvelles missions du Madure, 1 vols (Lyons, 1839-40), I, p. 195.3 7 Pate, Tinnemlly, p. 449; James Hornell, 'Repor t on the Feasibility of Opera t ing

Deep-Sea Fishing Boats on the Coasts of the Madras Presidency . . .', Madras FisheryInvestigations igo8 (Madras, 1910), p. 50.



2 l6 S. B. KAUFMANN

mejaikarar over the kamarakkarar majority. This meant that the castenotables took on a new function in recruiting and channelling labourwhich reinforced their ritual and social superiority.38 At the same timethe British still required the caste hierarchy's services in the pearl trade.The Madras government ratified each successor to the headmanship asthe Dutch had done, and conferred administrative privileges andpowers on the jati thalavan such as the responsibility for collectingmoturpha (head taxes) from Tuticorin Paravas.39

Although the established mejaikarar families made the greatest gains inthis period, the nineteenth-century trade boom was so extensive thatmany ritually inferior fishing and labouring families managed to moveinto trade between 1830 and 1900. In 1839 about ten per cent ofTuticorin's Parava population belonged to the mejai subdivision, butthis was not a rigidly closed class.40 Instead, the group's status systemwas flexible enough to accommodate a considerable shift in the distribu-tion of wealth within the caste. By 1850 the Paravas evolved a formalprocedure which allowed new kamarakkarar traders to gain public recog-nition as mejaikarar in return for a cash fee and a demonstration ofdeference to thejati thalavan:

II faut que le bourgeois [Jesuit name for non-mejai traders] qui desire montergagne les bonnes graces du Sadi Talavane [jati thalavan] et lui paie au moinsde 90 a 100 Rupees. Moyennant cela une service a cette table lui sera concedeeet il sera ennoblit.41

It follows, then, that the Paravas' ritually and economically privilegedsubdivision would almost certainly have assimilated these newly pros-perous kamarakkarar throughout the nineteenth century. The unrest andviolence which erupted over the next fifty years might never haveoccurred had it not been for thejesuits' efforts to unseat thejati thalavanby smashing the caste notables' control of churches and religious activi-ties. The next section will explore these developments.

3 8 Ibid.3 9 T C R vol. 7968/62/15 May 1839/TNA; TCR vol. 3595/122-3/12 March

1818/TNA; TCR vol. 7958/31/15 April 1840/ TNA; TCR vol. 7967/52/13 April1837/TNA; M. A. Thomas , A Report on the Pearl Fisheries and Chank Fisheries, 1884(Madras, 1884); Steuart, The Pearl Fisheries ojCeylon, pp. 10, 90. The Madras authoritieswere so scrupulous in preserving the Paravas' customary institutions that they continuedthe practice of paying a daily wage to the group's hereditary shark charmers, whoseincantations were deemed to be essential to the divers' safety. Ibid., pp. 14, 95. There areEnglish sanads dated 1808, 1856, 1889, and 1926 confirming the succession of new jatithalavans: PCD.

4 0 Calculated from figures in TCR vol. 7968/158/19 December 1839/TNA.4 1 Verdier, 'Memoire'.




Status Conflict and the Attack on the Jati Thalavan

The Vatican suppressed the Society of Jesus in 1774, and this move leftthe Paravas without European missionaries until 1838, when a party offive French and Belgian priests attached to the Jesuit 'new' MaduraMission arrived in Tirunelveli.42 After this sixty-year period withoutformal church discipline, the Parava caste notables had come todominate the group's churches and rituals more thoroughly than everbefore. The newly arrived missionaries were horrified to find that the jatithalavan appointed sacristans and other church servants, and played akey role in validating marriages, baptisms, and other rites which themissionaries understood as the sole province of ordained priests.43

Within a year of setting up operations in Tirunelveli, the MaduraMission plunged into a campaign to uproot everything that appeared'pagan' or un-Catholic in the Paravas' rituals and domestic practices. Inthe Jesuits' view orthodox faith and practice could only be rooted in theundisputed authority of the priest. Thus the mission's Superior found itpositively blasphemous that his priests were regularly forced to suspendchurch rites and defer to caste notables who would then debate somecontested point of ritual precedence among their parishioners.44

Throughout the nineteenth century the mission's policy in trying toend this clash of authority was not to obliterate the principles of casterank and ceremonial precedence on which the jati thalavan's powerrested, but to turn the system to their own advantage. By 1841 theMadura Mission organized the first of several attempts to construct arival caste hierarchy loyal to Jesuit authority and opposed to the jatithalavan and his circle. This was a feasible tactic because in fact themere presence of new missionaries tended to unsettle the group's statussystem. Like Tamil Hindus, Parava lineages customarily tried to makegains in the local pecking order by claiming entitlement to new andmore prestigious 'honours', and it was one of the jati thalavan's func-tions to mediate in these disputes. Among the Paravas the ceremonialprivileges which represented this enhanced standing were honours suchas the ringing of extra bells at marriages, and the use of prestigious

4 2 See Denis Guchen, Cinquante arts au Madure: 1837-1887. Re'cits el souvenirs, 2 vols(Trichinopoly, 1887-9); A. Jean , Le Madure', I'ancienne et la nouvelle mission, 2 vols (Lille,

•894)-4 3 Verdier, 'Memoire ' ; J T to Bp. Mylapore (fragment)/23-6-igo3/PCD; Motha,

Jathithalaimai; Bertrand, Lettres, I, pp. 60, 164.4 4 Lettres des nouvelles missions du Madure, I, pp . 200-5; H> PP- 26~7> Verdier,

'Memoire'.



2 l 8 S. B. KAUFMANN

honorifics when banns were read. When the Jesuits were new to Tirunel-vili it was easy for ritually inferior families to exploit the missionaries'ignorance by inducing them to grant new honours more rapidly thanthe established system would allow.45

By 1841 the mission had grasped the principles of the Parava statussystem well enough to challenge the caste headman's function as the solearbiter of precedence within the group. Since the Paravas did not havetheir own priests until 1894,46 they were dependent upon either Euro-pean or Goan priests to perform the sacraments for them. This was animportant tactical advantage for the Jesuits. The scheme of castehonours could only operate fully in conjunction with ritualists willing toprovide the sacraments: the allocation of ceremonial privileges wasorganized around marriage, festival masses, and the other sacraments.47

Therefore the missionaries soon developed the tactic of collecting parti-sans by offering them ceremonial privileges which the caste elite had notyet sanctioned. As recognized ritual specialists the missionaries auto-matically possessed the authority to endorse their supporters' claims tohigher caste rank. Several families at the fringe of the mejai status groupattached themselves to the Jesuits, and one of the caste headman'sbrothers offered himself as a counter-jati thalavan under Jesuitpatronage. This challege might have succeeded except that the brotherdied a few months later, and the mission's faction split apart in squab-bling over a successor.48

The Jesuits soon lost their valuable monopoly of the sacraments,because at this point the Portuguese ecclesiastical hierarchy in Goainitiated a campaign to seize control of the Parava churches from theMadura Mission. The conflict sprang from a dispute between thePapacy and the Portuguese Crown over the right of missionary'patronage' in India. But this obscure international debate had impor-tant ramifications for Christians in Tamilnadu because it provided theParavas and many other convert groups with two rival church authori-ties, both backed by European prestige and resources, and both compet-

4 5 Verdier, 'Memoire'.4 6 On Fr. L. X. Fernandes, the first ordained Parava, see J. E. A. Pereira, Rev. Fr.

L. X. Fernandes: An Appreciation (Madras, 1936).4 7 Even though priests performed these necessary services, their parishioners did not

hesitate to defy and even assault their Goan and European missionaries in the course oflocal disputes. Priests were often treated as retainers whose importance derived fromtheir role in sustaining the communicant's ritual status. This view of the priest as afunctionary was closer to the Hindu conception of the pujan than to the orthodoxCatholic view of the priest as a figure of absolute spiritual authority.

4 8 Verdier, 'Memoire'.



A CHRISTIAN CASTE IN HINDU SOCIETY 2IO,

ing for their allegiance.49 In August 1841 the jati thalavan and a largegroup of families allied with him broke formally with the Jesuits anddeclared their attachment to the Goan Padroado hierarchy. A localsub-magistrate then confirmed the alliance after a riot near the Periyako-vil which he blamed on the Jesuits' partisans. He declared the jatithalavan sole authority over the Periyakovil, and ruled that only Goanpriests approved by the jati thalavan, and not the Jesuits, had the rightto officiate in the church of Our Lady of Snows.50

Although the Jesuits were debarred by this from the Paravas' richestand most sacred shrine, they continued the battle to undercut the jatithalavan, and the conflict with the Goan hierarchy was subsumed andassimilated into this struggle. Attacks on the position of the caste elite inTuticorin had remarkably quick repercussions in the localities, and theresulting unrest in Parava centres throughout Tirunelveli clearly illus-trates the tight integration of the group's social and economic networks.During the 1840s and 1850s there were continual outbreaks in Mana-pad, Periyatalei, Virapandiyanpatanam, and most of the other vil-lages. 5 ' Local quarrels over ritual precedence as well as 'practical' issuessuch as fishing rights and house boundaries were regularly transformedinto contests between the Jesuits and the alliance of Goan priests andcaste notables. In all these villages dissident factions accepted patronagefrom one of the two jurisdictions. The next step was usually a violentstreet battle as the dissidents rushed to seize parish churches in the nameof the Jesuits or the Padroado.52

It is striking that the sign of victory in these clashes was a demon-stration of control over churches and their adjacent streets and com-pounds. During the 1870s the Jesuits made much more extensive use ofthe Paravas' system of'honours' and status in attacking the jati thala-van. In particular they devised tactics aimed at loosening the casteheadman's authority over shrines in Tuticorin, as they realized that hispowers in the ritual sphere hinged on the special connection betweencaste rank and control over churches and procession routes. The dis-putes which followed provide vivid evidence of the parallels between thebeliefs and religious practices of Tamil Christians and Hindus with

4 9 The battle between Padroado and Jesuit authorities is traced in the Madras CatholicExpositor, May 1846, April-September 1847, April-June 1849.

50 Verdier, 'Memoire'.51 Fr Francis Xavier Costa (Goan priest based in Periyatalei) to Collector, copy of

petition dated 24 J u n e 1847, PCD; Lettres de la nouvelle mission du Madure, vol. 1.5 2 Ibid.; Guchen, Cinquante ans, I, pp. 199-215; Alexis Canoz, 'Memoire sur l'etat

actuel de la mission du Madure—1850: origine de la mission—obstacles suscites par leschisme' (n.d.) Typescript copy of original report, M M A .



22O S. B. KAUFMANN

regard to the social significance of shrines and church or templeprecincts.

Appadurai and Breckenridge have argued that the deity honoured inHindu utsavams is best understood as the divine representation of ahuman king, and that during these festivals the god's processionsthrough the temple (his 'court') and among worshippers (his 'courtiers')in the streets outside serve to demonstrate the deity's sovereignty overthe moral and physical world which constitutes his sacred kingdom.53

The term 'sacred space' has been coined to describe the special sanctitywhich Hindus attach to the shrines and procession routes which com-prise the ruler-deity's 'realm'.54 It is proposed here that for the Paravasas well as many other south Indian Christians, churches and the nearbystreets used for marriages, funerals, and festival processions fulfilledsimilar functions. In both Hindu and Christian localities, the right toenter or to control holy precincts has long represented an essential markof caste rank and precedence.

By the 1870s the Madura Mission had begun to employ tactics whichgreatly resembled manoeuvres used by Hindu groups in temple entryclashes and conflicts over 'sacred space' all over south India. The firstclear case of this borrowing from Tamil status systems occurred in 1872when the Jesuits backed another family of would-be caste notables in anattempt to break the jati thalavan's control over Tuticorin churches.With the support of the Mission Superior this client family petitionedthe Collector for recognition as sole controlling authority over twoeighteenth-century chapels in Tuticorin. In 1873 district officials dis-regarded the caste headman's protests and approved the petitioners'proposal to build three-foot walls around both chapels, a move in cleardefiance of the jati thalavan's authority over church properties in thetown.55 But this success only paved the way for a move to gain rightswithin the Periyakovil itself. In April 1875 a §r o uP of the Jesuits' kamarak-karar supporters filed a suit demanding the right to take marriage andfuneral processions through the four streets which formed the boundaryof the Periyakovil compound. The right to stage family processions alongthis route had long been one of the chief signs of mejaikarar status, andwas conferred on rising kamarakkarar families at the discretion of the jati

5 3 ' T h e south Indian temple', pp . 191-4.5 4 Brenda E. F. Beck, 'The symbolic merger of body, space, and cosmos in Hindu

Tamil Nadu ' , Contributions to Indian Sociology, 10:2 (n.s.) 1976, pp. 219-26, 237-40.5 5 J T to Head Asst. Collector, Tuticorin (MS draft), 1873 (date incomplete)/PCD;

and Extract Proceedings of the Tuticorin Municipal Commissioner, 5 April 1873, copyin P C D .



A CHRISTIAN CASTE IN HINDU SOCIETY 22 1

thalavan. Therefore the demand represented the most serious attack yeton the primacy of the caste headman.56

The petitioners lost this second suit, but it still set the pattern for jointJesuh-kamarakkarar action for the next forty years.57 This clash alsoreveals that by the 1870s the Jesuits themselves were operating accord-ing to the same principles of ritual 'honour' which influenced theirParava opponents as well as large numbers of Tamil Hindus. Thekamarakkarar never stopped using the Periyakovil as the main referencepoint in any attempt to gain new 'honours' under the mission's auspices,even though the Jesuits had built a new separate church (known as theCinnakovii. 'lesser church') for their affiliates.58 The mission itself tacitlyaccepted the primacy of the group's existing shrines and caste symbols,as the inducements it offered to Jesuit supporters always focused onaccess to Periyakovil precincts or other established signs of rank andhonour.

The 'Little King' on the Defensive, 1885-1905

The next upsurge in tension should be seen in the context of a finalperiod of expansion in many Parava centres in the 1880s and 1890s. Thiscommercial boom was stimulated by the dramatic growth of the Ceylonplantation economy in the late nineteenth century.59 Many establishedtrading families in Tuticorin and other localities simply increased theirprofits from shipping and cargo broking in this boom period. But manynew families in centres like Manapad entered the Ceylon trade networksfor the first time, making large fortunes as suppliers of foodstuffs, liquor,and textiles to the greatly enlarged population of Tamil plantationworkers in Ceylon.60 This was also a period of rapid diversification for

56 Recounted by the 'Special Committee of Padroado Christians' (M. J. Carvalho,J. A. D. Victoria, et al.) in a printed memorial to the Bp. Mylapore, 7 October 1928,p. 4/PCD.

57 After the failure of the suit the jati thalavan and Padroado authorities built their ownwall around the Periyakovil. The Jesuits' proteges lost a High Court appeal demandingthat the wall be torn down. In May 1877 the same group of proteges staged a religiousprocession along a route provocatively close to the Periyakovil, and fierce rioting brokeout when the celebrants tried to force their way into the church compound. MadrasHigh Court Suit 574/1876, quoted in MS draft letter from 'Parava Padroado Christians,Tuticorin' to Bp. Mylapore, 1 June 1894 (?)/PCD; Lettres de la nouvelle mission du Madure,vol. I.

58 Gomez, Pictorial Souvenir, p. v; Guchen, Cinquante ans, I, p. 49.59 K. M. de Silva, History of Ceylon (Peradeniya, 1973), vol. I l l , pp. 89-118.6 0 One leading adapan lineage from Manapad, the Mirandas, entered the Ceylon

commercial system in the lifetime of J. M. S. Miranda (1855-1911) who had been a



222 S. B. KAUFMANN

many mejaikarar. Many boat-owning families, especially those pre-viously involved in recruiting workers for the Tuticorin harbour works,made important gains as contractors in the Colombo harbour projectsduring the 1880s: Tuticorin's best-known magnate family, the Roche-Victorias, began their rise as harbour contractors in Ceylon in about1885.61

Because of this boom many more kamarakkarar than ever before soughtto make new displays of ceremonial prestige. This is not to say that rapideconomic change in itself overturned relationships of precedence andauthority within the group. While many more families became pros-perous enough to sponsor prestigious festival rites after 1880, the crisis ofleadership which overtook the Paravas still derived from a combinationof ritual, social, and economic factors. Furthermore this crisis was set inmotion only when the Jesuits renewed their attack on the group's castenotables in 1891: the 1880s had been a comparatively untroubled timefor the headman and mejaikarar. Thejati thalavan Dom Gabriel de CruzVaiz Paldano died without a male heir in 1889. The group had neverneeded to devise a system for passing on the headmanship in default of amale heir, and as a result dissident kamarakkarar families were able todelay the installation of a successor (Vaiz Paldano's daughter's son)until September 1891.62

This internal clash gave the Jesuits an ideal opportunity to intensifythe insecure status of the new caste headman. Only weeks after hisinstallation they threw their support to a number of kamarakkarar fami-lies who had taken the unprecedented step of constructing their ownceremonial caste emblems.63 The point of this move was to assert higherritual standing since control of caste regalia was a well-known mark ofprecedence within the group. But it was also a tactic in clear defiance ofthe jati thalavan's monopoly of caste rites and regalia. Paravas inTuticorin and the villages had traditionally applied for the banners,torches, and other insignia in the caste headman's keeping when they

small-scale dealer hawking piece-goods around the coastal villages. He then marriedinto the family of S. S. Fernando, a Manapad Parava who had just started a commercialventure in Ceylon. By 1900 their textile importing concern was one of the most successfulParava businesses. They and other prosperous Manapad grocers, liquor importers, andpiece-goods dealers returned from Ceylon to build the showy European-style houses forwhich Manapad is famous in Tirunelveli. Interviews, Manapad and Tuticorin, August-September 1977.

6 1 Interviews with the Roche-Victoria family, Tuticorin, August 1977.6 2 J T to Collector, Tuticorin, 24 July 1889/PCD; 'The Bharathars of Tuticorin, 24

July 1889/PCD; 'The Bharathars of Tuticorin' tojesuit authorities, printed memorial,29 September 1891/PCD.

6 3 Ibid.




wished to stage marriage and funeral processions. In this new move abody of Parava barbers attached themselves to the Jesuits' dissidentfamilies and declared their willingness to carry the new unauthorizedregalia in their patrons' processions. The Jesuits then reopened the issueof access to the Periyakovil by petitioning the municipality to open thePeriyakovil's procession streets to their kamarakkarar affiliates.64 Thus theJesuits could now offer their supporters the hope of taking marriage andfuneral processions, complete with caste banners and regalia, into theprecincts of the Church of Our Lady of Snows itself. These wereprivileges which they had never held before.

Again this campaign had rapid repercussions in the villages. News ofthe proceedings against the caste headman in Tuticorin spread rapidly,and villagers disciplined for local offences took the opportunity to defypunishments imposed by the adapans and sitatis, claiming that the head-man's status was in doubt and that his representatives in the localitieshad forfeited their authority.65 The Jesuits then backed these rebels byforbidding all their affiliates to make use of the jati thalavan's casteinsignia. They also banned the Paravas' customary gestures of respect tocaste notables such as offerings of betel nut before marriages and otherfamily rites.66 By 1893 these sanctions had alarmed the jati thalavan sodeeply that he wrote to the Papal Legate imploring him 'not to coun-tenance my enemies who are cherished by them [the Madura Mission]and in short to allow my banners and torches to be used by their missionChristians as heretofore without subjecting them to any restriction orinconvenience.'67

Shortly after this, however, the Jesuits found an even more subtle wayto adapt caste symbolism for their own purposes. In order to undercutthe jati thalavan's pre-eminence in the Paravas' most important corpor-ate rite, the Jesuits inaugurated a new festival never celebrated inTuticorin before. This was the feast of St Fidelis, to be held in May 1894.It was designed specifically to imitate and supplant the Golden Carfestival, and the mission chose its chief sponsors from among kamarak-

6 4 J T to Bp. Mylapore (MS draft), 1 J u n e 1894/PCD.6 5 For example, 13 families in Kadaladai defied an order from the jati thalavan

forbidding them to market their fish and refused to pay their kanikkai dues, declaring'those who wish to honour the jat i thalavan in such a way might do so, but others neednot—it is no longer compulsory.' Thommai Antony Fernando to J T , Kadaladai , 1891(date unclear) /PCD.

6 6 J T to Papal Legate, Msgr. Zaleski, 23 October 1893/PCD; Michael Antony,kattalaikaran (Jesuit-nominated lay office-holder) of Alandalei, t o J T , 3July 1891/PCD.

6 7 J T to Zaleski, 23 October i8g3/PCD. In fact the Jesuits had been refusing toperform marriages and funerals for Paravas who used the jat i thalavan's regalia. Ibid.



224 S- B - KAUFMANN

karar traders who had already sought to spend their new wealth on ritesand 'honours' reserved for ritually superior Paravas.68 These donorsarranged for the construction of a massive glass-sided ter patterned onthe one used in the feast of Our Lady of Snows. In it was placed acertified relic of St Fidelis, specially obtained from Rome. With musi-cians and barbers carrying flags, caste emblems, and capparams, thecelebrants planned to take the procession along the whole length of thePeriyakovil procession route, in direct defiance of the jati thalavan.69

The result was one of the worst riots in the community's history. As thedissident kamarakkarar tried to force their way into the Periyakovil withtheir ter and regalia, they were attacked by hundreds of the jati thala-van's supporters. The crowd stoned the capparams with their crosses andsaints' images, and shattered the glass-panelled ter and relic.70

Despite the violence and the expensive court cases which followed theriot, in the next months the mission continued to encourage theirproteges to defy the headman and press for the right to carry their ownemblems into the Periyakovil precincts.71 Disorder and opposition to thecaste hierarchy spread to many outlying villages. In Sippikulam unrulylocal families flouted adapans who had tried to punish them for mis-demeanours by forbidding them to use caste regalia in marriagecelebrations.72 In another centre dissident Paravas defied a similarorder banning marriage processions by borrowing ceremonial bannersand insignia from the Jesuits' Parava partisans in nearby Moorkaiyurand Sippikulam.73 In 1895 the Jesuits stepped up the pressure byprohibiting their affiliates from contributing to the regional collectionsof kanikkai levied by the mel nattu (assembly of southwestern Paravavillages) in the name of the caste headman.74 Many village notablesbecame convinced that the jati thalavan could only shore up his threat-

6 8 Guchen, Cinquante ans, I, p. 49; J T to Bp. Mylapore (fragment), Tuticorin, 15 May1894/PCD.

6 9 J T to Bp. Mylapore, ibid.jPCD.7 0 Ibid.7 ' Less than a month after the riot, another outbreak occurred when a kamarakkarar

family's marriage party tried to take the rival insignia into the Periyakovil compound. J Tto Bp. Mylapore, 1 June 1894/PCD. The jati thalavan appealed to the local magistrateto prevent a similar clash in 1895.JT to Joint Magistrate (MS draft), Tuticorin, 24 July1895/PCD; 'Tuticorin people' toJT, n.d./PCD.

72 Adapan of Sippikulam toJT , 10 May 1895/PCD.7 3 Fragment of MS letter t o J T (village name obliterated) 11 October 1895/PCD.

Similar challenges to the caste notables are described by 'Villagers of Manapad' to J T ,13 October 1894/PCD; Francisco Ignaci Leo, adapan of Manapad, to J T , 5 August1894/PCD; 'Villagers' of Periyatalei t o J T (date obliterated)/PCD.

7 4 Susai Kitherian, pallangallt ofKutapuzhi, t o J T , 17 August 1895/PCD.




ened authority by insisting more rigorously than ever before on custom-ary tribute and gestures of respect from members of the caste, asindicated by this appeal from the Kutapuzhi pattangatti:

Your Highness must pass strict orders as regards the offerings to your kind selffrom every village. The amount should be definitely noted . . . For auspiciousfunctions such as marriages and funerals, betel should be distributed in thename of Your Highness and then only according to the village custom. Unlesspeople of our community heed to your conditions you need not work for theirwelfare and save them from riots and calamities done to them by othercommunities.75

By 1896 even Padroado priests previously allied to the jati thalavanbegan to imitate the Jesuits by repudiating the caste elders' authorityover churches and festival rites. The priest in charge of Manapad'sPadroado church of the Holy Ghost was one of the first to reject the oldalliance with the jati thalavan in the hope of gaining sole power overchurch fees, festivals, and property in villages containing Padroadoaffiliates. He declared to his parishioners:

The Metropolitan Bishop [of Mylapore] has conferred on me triple powers overthe caste, village, and church. For using community emblems, using musicians,torches, distributing betel, and other such rites ensuring marriages andfunerals, permission must be obtained from me. No-one should regard the jatithalavan as head of the jati.76

Ignoring the jati thalavan's protests, Goan authorities in Tuticorinalso began a campaign to wrest control of churches and caste symbolsfrom the caste notables. In 1901 the PeriyakoviPs head priest actuallytried to overturn the jati thalavan's oldest marks of status, including hisright to sit in the special seat nearest the Sanctuary during mass.77 Thesesetbacks in the ritual sphere also undermined the jati thalavan's author-ity over the group's economic activities. A pearling official reported in1900 that the caste headman's loss of prestige had damaged his controlover Parava divers so that they had become undisciplined and prone tostrike work on frivolous pretexts.78

The last formally designated jati thalavan assumed office in 1926 afterseveral years of controversy and attempts by the group's numerouscompeting 'caste associations' to usurp or redefine the role of the head-

7 5 Ibid.7 6 Manapad caste notable (signature obliterated) to J T , 11 Ju ly 1896/PCD.7 7 J T to Bp. Mylapore (MS draft), Tuticorin, Ju ly 1901/PCD.7 8 Report included in Madras BOR Proceedings 2081/12 October 1900; and BOR

Proceedings 534/22 August 1890/copies in PCD.



226 S. B. KAUFMANN

man.79 During this time kamarakkarar magnates affiliated to the Jesuitsstruggled inconclusively for supremacy within the group's status system,which still hinged on access to the Periyakovil and the allocation of caste'honours'.80 The authority of the jati thalavan finally disintegrated inthe decades after the Second World War. From the mid-1940s thedistinction between elite traders and the mass of poorer fishermen at lastbecame obsolete because the introduction of refrigeration, nylon nets,and motor-powered boats made fishing itself increasingly lucrative.Once the mejai-kamarakkarar division lost its economic basis, the jatithalavan could no longer retain what remained of his function as asource of endorsement for upwardly mobile kamarakkarar. And in recentyears the forced repatriation of many Tamil traders from Sri Lanka hasdestroyed the all-important trading connection which enriched andsustained the old Parava elite.

Today the group no longer operates as a tightly integrated economicand social unit. Even so, the festival of Our Lady of Snows still takesplace at regular intervals, and still provides an important ceremonialfocus for the group. Since the last war however the most prosperouskamarakkarar, particularly families involved in processing and exportingfrozen prawns, have usurped the signs of ritual pre-eminence once heldby the jati thalavan. Today it is the head of the richest of these Tuticorinkamarakkarar lineages who gives the first symbolic pull to the Golden Carat the start of the festival, and this magnate now acts as chief donor in therites accompanying the festival of Our Lady of Snows.81

Church, Caste, and Commerce: An Overview

While it is true that the jati thalavan suffered severe reverses after 1872,it must not be assumed that he was nothing but a figurehead by 1900.What happened, rather, is that he moved from a position of unassailableauthority to a new defensiveness and vulnerability. The fact that largenumbers of Paravas could challenge his caste standing represented adramatic departure from his earlier pre-eminence. But the castenotables all remained remarkably influential through the whole periodof dissent.and violence in the Parava localities. Even the Jesuits were

79 On the Paravas' unsuccessful attempts to form a single caste association (with acoherent policy toward traditional caste institutions) from their many localized castesangams and sabhas, see Milestones in Bharatha Progress.

8 0 'Special Emergency Committee of Padroado Christians' to J T (printed memorial),Colombo, 7 October 1928/PCD.

81 Information from interviews, Tuticorin, August 1977.




required to form their policies in reference to the jati thalavan and theexisting honours system, and were never able to build up separate ritualsand church discipline in their own right. And a survey of the survivingnineteenth-century caste documents shows how resilient the group'scaste institutions were at a time when the movement of labour to townsand plantations and the expansion of the cash economy tended toundermine customary authority within agrarian society in the south.

Parava caste notables managed to command considerable respecteven at the height of the community's riots and disputes. Their survivalcan be explained both by the long tradition of deference to the jatithalavan and village elders, and by the caste elite's skill in adapting tocommercial expansion after 1880. For example, the caste headmanmanaged to play the role of'little king' with remarkable conviction untilwell into the 1920s. Parava supplicants and village notables continuedto use traditional salutations stressing the jati thalavan's 'royal' status:'To the jati thalavan, King of the Bharatha Dynasty: his glory hides thesun; his palanquin is drawn by lions.'82 'We are always at your beck andcall . . . with the hope of getting all comfort and protection from YourHonour.'83 'We have no other father, mother, or master than YourHighness.'84 The jati thalavan used this language of sovereignty as well,referring to Parava villagers as 'Our subjects'85 and calling his residencein Tuticorin Pandiyapathy Palace.86 And in 1928 he formulated ahistory of his family based loosely on the discoveries of the Indus Valleycivilizations: 'I am a lineal descendant of the noble Bharathar Kings.India is called after my forefathers the land of the Bharathars. The pearlfisheries far famed in history belonged to them.'87

If we turn to the day-to-day operations of the caste notables ratherthan their behaviour in crisis, it becomes clear that the Parava villagenotables continued to carry out their customary duties in the midst ofthe community's conflicts. The caste documents contain hundreds ofroutine reports from village elders to the jati thalavan, notifying him ofmarriages, property disputes, clashes over fishing rights, and tallies ofthe village levies which they collected (often in defiance of the Jesuits'ban on forwardingkanikkai to the caste headman). This material vividlyillustrates the jati thalavan's specialized knowledge of the Paravalocalities and their resources, and it was this which made him an

8 2 (Name obliterated) to J T , Pollikarai village, 30 November 1890/PCD.8 3 Alandalei ' labourers' t o J T , 19 J a n u a r y 1896/PCD.8 4 Periatalei 'villagers' t o J T , n.d. ( i8g4?) /PCD.8 5 J T to Zaleski (MS draft), Tuticorin, 23 October 1893/PCD.8 6 J T to Portuguese Ambassador (printed address), 4 February 1930/PCD.8 7 Quoted in ig^y Our Lady of Snows Festival Souvenir Volume, p. 57.



228 S. B. KAUFMANN

invaluable collaborator in the colonial pearling and trading systems.Even in the troubled 1890s the bulk of these letters to the jati thalavandeal with routine issues such as cases of disputed inheritance;88 clashesover house and field boundaries;89 and appeals to him to punish default-ing debtors.90

Many of these reports to the jati thalavan describe sanctions againstadulterers and other offenders accused of defaming thejati and threaten-ing its ritual and moral 'substance'. It is striking that these communica-tions stress protection of the collective 'blood purity' of the caste, andthat they use much the same language employed in describing the'moral community' of Hindu castes in the south.91 In a typical case,caste notables from Kollam Sinnakadai appealed to thejati thalavan tosupport them in a decision against two illegitimate children born to aParava woman and her non-Parava lover.92 The children had beendenied standing as authentic Paravas and were accordingly barred fromcaste feasts and church rites, but the village notables were under pres-sure from dissidents allied to the Jesuits to extend caste rights to thefamily. The village notables described the proposed recognition as agrave threat to the 'blood' and moral status of the group as a whole. Thegrowing mobility of labourers and traders made this problem of purityincreasingly troubling, as in the case of a labourer from Punnayakayalwho had seduced a local girl and then evaded the priest's order to marryher by leaving the village to find work in Tuticorin.93

The flouting of local discipline cited earlier involved an erosion of thecaste notables' control, but not a complete collapse of the system.Throughout this period, elders in most Parava centres imposed fines andpublic penances on Paravas for offenses such as fornication, brawling,and drunkenness.94 As to the drastic step of outcasting, in Hindu society

8 8 A typical letter sets out details of a dispute over an inheritance of Rs 107 plus a smallland-holding. Alandalei village notable to JT , 31 August 1891/PCD; and see similarreports from Alandalei (8 December 1893); and Moorkaiyur (29 Novemberi8gi)/PCD.

8 9 Joseph Fernando to J T , 8 November 1891/PCD.9 0 Suroni Pedar Poobalarayan to JT , 19 August 1894/PCD.9 1 McKim Marriott and Ronald Inden, 'Caste Systems' in The New Encyclopaedia

Britannica, III (1974), pp. 983-4.9 2 Kollam Sinnakadai notables toJT, 1895 (date incomplete)/PCD.9 3 Punnayakayal kattalaikaran to J T , 4 June 1894/PCD. In another case a Manapad

woman bore an illegitimate daughter and then rejoined her trader husband in Colombo.The Manapad adapan appealed for a ruling on whether the daughter should be acknow-ledged as a member of the caste and whether she should receive the usual rites for Paravagirls at puberty. Thomas Ignaci Leo toJT, Colombo, 27 December 1891/PCD.

9 4 Sippikulam sitalis toJT, 23-9-1891/PCD. Offenders were made to parade throughthe village wearing a crown of thorns or make their way around the village church on




this sanction was usually imposed at the initiative of local elders. Amongthe Paravas, however, ritual and economic ties were not confined toindividual localities. Cases of expulsion and readmission to caste wereinvariably referred to the jati thalavan, and the same economic changeswhich tended to break down the authority of regional caste assembliesand headmen among Hindus actually strengthened many of the powersof the Parava notables.95 The Paravas' trading connections and regularmigration to the diving sites meant that the institutions of caste had tooperate over a wide geographical area. Therefore it became increasinglyimportant for the group to take collective steps in cases of outcasting andthe jati thalavan and the regional nattu assemblies were often called uponto publicize sanctions against outcast Paravas.96

The mobility of Parava labourers and traders also enhanced theimportance of the caste notables' role in safeguarding 'pure' and correctmarriage alliances within the group. The further they moved from theirhome localities, the more frequently commercial men and labourers hadto secure guarantees of legitimate caste standing.97 Only thejati thala-van and village elders could provide these certifications. The castedocuments contain numerous appeals from migrants based in Madura,Colombo, and other centres calling on the caste headman to certify theircaste standing so that they could make suitable marriages back inTirunelveli.98

In the economic as well as the ritual and social sphere, the Paravacaste notables were exceptionally influential. In agrarian society it wasthe minority of dominant land-holders rather than caste leaders as suchwho controlled labour, credit, and marketing in their localities.99 Butlike Hindu trading groups, the Paravas had their own sources of credit,and they used caste connections to organize these credit dealings.100

From an early period, for example, thejati thalavan and other notables

their knees. Reports to J T from Vaippar, 6 October 1891; Sippikulam, 23 September1891/PCD.

9 5 Pallam village 'elder' t o J T (damaged: 1891?), PCD.9 6 After the outcasting of a fisherman from Pallam, the ja t i thalavan ordered one of

the nattu assemblies to stop the marriage of the offender's daughter with a man from Alur.9 7 Reports to thejat i thalavan dated 31 May 1896; 27 May 1896/PCD.9 8 A labourer who had migrated to Tuticorin appealed for a testimonial certifying his

respectability and caste purity: his son's marriage to a girl from Uvari had been delayedby rumours that he was 'of an indecent and very low family'. Petition to J T , Tuticorin, 6May 1895/PCD. And a Manapad trader based in Ceylon applied to thejati thalavan fora formal certification of his standing as a 'decent member of the Parava community ' sothat his son could marry. 13 February 1895/PCD.

9 9 Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial Politics, pp. 68-85 .1 0 0 See Washbrook's treatment of the Komatis, 'Development of Caste Organisa-

tion', p. 152.



23O S. B. KAUFMANN

provided financial backing to Paravas engaged in commercial venturesin Ceylon.101 In addition, it was noted above that the caste eliteincreased its control over employment and labour relations in thenineteenth century.102 As most cultivators in the 'dry south' dependedon local magnates for marketing facilities, the Paravas enjoyed anotheradvantage over the agrarian population in that the various nattu assemb-lies owned and operated important fish markets in centres such asPillaitopu, Putenturai, and Singikulam.103 The pattangattis collectedmahimai levies from hawkers and traders in these markets, and theirincome went toward a general fund used for festivals and corporate legalexpenses.104

The jati thalavan's authority over fish trading included control overprices, the location of market sites, and even the right to veto commer-cial contact between specified localities.105 Caste notables also deter-mined standards of fair 'craft' practice, banning the use of certain fishingnets which endangered oyster stocks, for example.106 In addition, thejati thalavan dispensed charity to the families of disabled fishermen andother indigents by granting them koodai panku ('basket share')—i.e. theright to market one free basket of fish daily from the overall villagecatch.107 Thus the routine of fishing and trading helped to maintain thejati thalavan's role as patron and protector of the group.

This wide range of powers and resources helps to explain why theJesuits failed to crush the Parava caste notables by 1900. In fact themission never sought to obliterate the system of caste honours andceremonial precedence on which the jati thalavan's authority rested,although they intended to usurp control over caste symbols and church

101 For example, the sacristan of the Periyakovil acted as an intermediary for aKutapuzhi man seeking a loan from the jati thalavan for a business enterprise in Ceylon.Sacristan t o J T , 13 November 1894/PCD.

102 For example, the jati thalavan could press tindals and contractors to deny work toParava migrants in Tuticorin who had violated caste discipline in their home villages.Periatalei caste notables to J T , 12 April 1891/PCD. Village notables also maintainedtheir power to intervene in relations between boat owners and fishing crews. Adapansimposed caste sanctions on labourers who broke ties of service to boat owners, and couldbar crewmen from serving owners or tindals who had committed offenses. Moorkaiyursitali to J T , 5 July 1896/PCD; 'Manapad villagers' t o JT , 5 August 1894/PCD.

103 Villavarayan Moduthome t o J T , Kaniyakumari, March 1892/PCD.104 Ibid. Some other specialized groups including Hindu Shanars or Nadars (toddy

tappers) and Kaikkilaiyar weavers operated similar mahimai levies. Pate, Tinnevelly, p.104.

105 Representatives of western nattu to J T , July 1892 (date incomplete)/PCD; Pun-naiyaur munsif to J T , 17 August 1893/PCD.

106 Punnayakayal gramam munsif to J T , 19 August 1893/PCD.107 Manuel Packiam Fernando t o J T (village, date obliterated 1896?) PCD.



A CHRISTIAN CASTE IN HINDU SOCIETY 23 I

affairs. In trying to build up a rival headman's lineage under themission's jurisdiction, and in creating rival festivals and ceremonialregalia, the Jesuits were forced implicitly to acknowledge the pre-eminence of the Periyakovil and the festival of Our Lady of Snows—stillbasically the preserves of the mejai elite at the end of the century.Throughout this period the mission's tactics were determined by theprinciples of the existing and basically Hindu system of status whichprevailed in Parava localities, and even in the 1900s the Jesuits couldnot ignore the jati thalavan's prestige and authority in forming theirstrategy.

At the same time the British continued to endorse and remunerate thejati thalavan and his adapans and pattangattis in return for their services inthe pearl industry. This recognition bolstered their prestige, and the feeswhich they received for overseeing the pearl fisheries helped to maintainthe financial margin between ordinary fishermen and the caste elite.This extra prosperity helped the kamarakkarar and the village adapan-trading group to move into seaborne commerce, first in the mid-nineteenth-century trade boom, and then during the Ceylon exportboom in the 1880s.

How did the Paravas compare with other maritime groups in thesouth? Like the Christian fishing population, the Hindu Pattanavans (orKaraiyars), Arayanattu Chettis, and Sembadavans situated on theTamil coast north of Ramnad had highly organized caste institu-tions.108 But in 1902 a survey found that the majority of these Hindufishermen were poor, 'backward', and tied in a state of perpetual debtbondage to Muslim fish merchants. These dealers had a monopoly oftheir dependent fishermen's catches, and settled accounts with smallcash advances only once or twice a year at rates fixed far below themarket.109 The Paravas were in an entirely different position, able tosell their catches daily for cash on their own terms, and rarely bound tooutside dealer-creditors.110 Their toughness and independence wereproverbial: if buyers tried to combine to force down fish prices, theParavas 'decline to sell at such rates and rush off to the market to selldirect to the public.'111

108 Thurston, Castes and Tribes, V I , pp. 333-4; V I I , pp. 259, 286-7; V. Govindan,Fishery Statistics and Information, West and East Coasts, Madras Presidency. Madras FisheriesBureau Bulletin No. 9 (Madras, 1916), p. 133.

1 0 9 Govindan, ibid., pp. 136-8.1 1 0 Ibid., p. 139; James Hornell, A Statistical Analysis of the Fishing Industry of Tuticorin

(South India), Madras Fisheries Bureau, Bulletin No. 11. Rept. No. 3 (Madras, 1918), pp.86-7.

U1 Ibid.



232 S. B. KAUFMANN

This independence derived partly from economic factors such as theircontrol over labour, credit, and marketing. Unlike cultivators, Paravafishermen were not dependent on a single occupation. Their alternativesincluded work on lighters and cargo craft, chank diving, and inland andoverseas trading,112 but it was pearling that provided the crucial advan-tage over fishing groups situated outside the Manaar region. EachCeylon fishery attracted 200 to 400 boatloads of divers and oarsmenfrom Tirunelveli and Ramnad—up to 3,000 Paravas and Lebbai Mus-lims. British officials noted that during a good pearling session the mostexpert divers could earn as much as 500 or 1,000 rupees. These sumsbacked a number of successful kamarakkarar in the move into trade.113

The Paravas, then, had a long tradition of mobility, and from ancienttimes they had learned to adapt their maritime skills to changingeconomic circumstances. This flexibility bore fruit in their later responseto commercial opportunities in Ceylon, and much of their success astraders and contractors in the colonial period was due to their skill inexploiting the resources of the coastal region, and to the usefulness oftheir maritime occupations to the European powers.

Conclusions

What then does this study of the Paravas demonstrate about the oper-ation of caste and Christian identity in colonial south India, and aboutthe relationship between institutions of economic and ritual authority?The Paravas' specialized occupations helped to promote some degree ofcorporate identity within the group even before the advent of thePortuguese. Their close internal organization was then fostered by theEuropean powers who all required a tightly knit client group to organizepearling in the Gulf of Manaar. But these economic and political factorsdid not in themselves give rise to the Paravas' resilient social structure.The real explanation lies in the interplay of material and ritual elementsin the group's development: the Paravas' tight caste structure wasstrengthened by their religious traditions, and this communal organiza-

1 1 2 Because Hindus regarded fish-handling as an unclean occupation like sellingtoddy (palm liquor), Paravas were drawn almost automatically into marketing theircatches. It was then an obvious next step to other forms of small-scale commerce: by 1845Paravas comprised a substantial portion of the petty cloth and grain dealers andheadload hawkers of south Tirunelveli. TCR vol. 7973/258/22 November 1845/TNA.

1 1 3 W. C. Twynam, Report on the Pearl Fishery of 1880; ibid., 1881; 1887; (Colombo,1880-7), ' n E. L. Pawsey Papers, Box I, Archive Collection, Centre of South AsianStudies, Cambridge.




tion then gave them a special advantage in managing markets andmoving into overseas commerce in the colonial period.

Indeed the crucial element in the Paravas' cohesiveness was theirconversion to Christianity. Instead of withdrawing from Hindu society,the group developed a remarkable fusion of Roman Catholic ritual withHindu concepts of authority and ceremonial precedence. Christianitybecame a kind of caste lifestyle for the Paravas. Just as Hindus took partin many seemingly incompatible 'sanskritic' and 'non-Vedic' styles ofworship,114 so, too, converts managed to reconcile a systematic attach-ment to Hindu modes of belief and practice with a strong and lastingRoman Catholic affiliation. And paradoxically the assumption of Chris-tian identity left the Paravas with stronger institutions of leadership andcaste identity than those possessed by most south Indian Hindus.

In fact there is no real contradiction here. One of the great strengths ofthe Catholic missions in south India was the availability of considerablecommon ground between Roman Catholic doctrines and observancesand the beliefs and practices of popular Hinduism.115 Thus as Chris-tians the Paravas continued to perceive the caste headman's authority ina form which closely resembled Hindu notions of kingship. Like the idealHindu king, thejati thalavan served as the group's chief arbiter in ritual,social, and economic matters. For over 350 years hereditary headmenheld a place in church rites which was analogous to the role of southIndian rulers as patrons and protectors of Hindu temples.

The Jesuits' attack on the jati thalavan was the essential catalystleading to the Paravas' crisis of authority in the nineteenth century. Theriots and disputes which resulted from the Jesuits' campaigns closelyresembled Hindu clashes over 'sacred space' and ceremonial prece-dence. The details of these conflicts show how effectively popular Catho-lic and Hindu religious styles could merge in south India. And despitethese outbreaks the social system produced by the Paravas' amalgama-tion of Hindu and Christian traditions was highly flexible. Rapid econo-mic change in the nineteenth century need not have unsettled the

114 Hindus rarely abandon one set of rituals and beliefs in favour of'higher' rites anddoctrines, even on occasions when a lineage or caste group seeks to elevate its socialstanding by emulating the rites and customs of a higher ranking group. Instead they mayrecruit Brahmins to perform orthodox Vedic domestic rites for them, but the same groupwill still continue to worship blood-drinking local goddesses and malignant spirits (peys).See Lawrence A. Babb, The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India (New York,'975). PP- '77,212-14,240-3.

"* This point is covered more fully in my Ph.D. dissertation 'Popular Christianity,Caste, and Hindu Society in south India, 1800-1915: A Study of Travancore andTirunelveli' (University of Cambridge, 1979).



234 S. B. KAUFMANN

control of the dominant Tuticorin and village lineages. As shown above,by mid-century the group had devised a means by which new traderscould assume mejaikarar status without threatening the supremacy of thejati thalavan. Thus it was the combination of economic change and theJesuits' attack on the primacy of the caste elite which eventually dis-rupted the group's leadership. Even so, the battles of the nineteenthcentury still left the Paravas with stronger corporate institutions andcaste identity than those of almost every other jati in south India.

The aim of this paper has been to set changes affecting a Christianja/zagainst the background of beliefs and traditions in the wider society. Itseems clear that the beliefs, observances and religious conflicts of southIndian Christians are only wholly intelligible in terms of Hindu prin-ciples of beliefs and behaviour. Converts rarely abandoned Hindunotions of caste identity and ritual purity when they assumed Protestantor Roman Catholic affiliation. Many studies of Christianity in Indiahave noted that Hindu customs regularly survived among converts, butthese are usually seen as piecemeal 'hangovers' from Hinduism. Therehave been few systematic attempts to relate the process of conversionand the social institutions of converts to a wider Hindu background.More work is needed in this area, as studies of other Christian groupsbesides the Paravas can illuminate changes within south Indian societyas a whole, and not just within narrow communal boundaries.
