The Untouchables: Rat Eaters of Tamil Nadu

Thu Mar 7, 2013, 3:18 AM

Rat Eaters Of Tamil Nadu

The Irula Tribe

Irulas are a scheduled tribe of India and present in various parts of India, but are mainly located in the Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu.
Their population in this region is estimated to be between 1000 to 2000.
The tribes of Southern India are not tribes as in the sense of tribes in Polynesia of Africa, but rather segregated and inter-married communities descended directly through a pure blood line from the original humans who settled in South India after migrating from Africa.
The Census of Kerala identified 756 Irulan individuals from 189 families living in 9 settlements covering .23 km² in the state.

Cultural anthropology

Their main occupations are snake and rat catching. They also work as labourers (coolies) in the fields of the landlords during the sowing and harvesting seasons or in the rice mills.
Fishing is also a major occupation.
Rats destroy a quarter of the grain grown on Tamil Nadu-area farms annually. To combat this pest, Irula men use a traditional earthen pot fumigation method.
Smoke is blown through their mouths, which leads to severe respiratory and heart problems.
Early 20th century anthropological literature classified the Irulas under the Negrito ethnic group.
Unlike the tribes in the Andaman Islands who have retained their language, Irulas in Nilgiris have adopted the local regional languages such as Tamil and Telugu.
Irula people are generally called as Negrito people, but they have a different hair consistency to other Tamil people.
Their hair is more like a coarse afro than the straight hair of others in Southern India.
_{Source: Wikipedia}

Untouchables

A member of the lowest-caste Hindu group or a person outside the caste system. Contact with untouchables is traditionally held to defile members of higher castes.
The term untouchable and the social restrictions accompanying it were declared illegal in the constitution of India in 1949 and of Pakistan in 1953.
_{Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable}

Video Clip taken from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC's TABOO,
uploaded to YouTube as 'Eating Rats - India (HD)' by bwanakeino

Original Skin by =fantasy-alive
Modified by *MARX77

51 Comments