VILLUPURAM: A wedding without any caste discrimination, dowry and bonded only on the promise of love and harmony is how one can describe the matrimonial culture of tribes living in Villupuram and Kallakruichi districts.
As the World Indigenous Day was observed on Monday, TNIE explores the wedding culture of three major tribal populations in Kallakurichi and Villupuram districts - Irular, Kaatunayakan and Malai Kuravan.
The three tribes account for about 10 per cent of the total population in the districts combined.
"We have no particular Hindu rituals like the fire, or grinding stone. Ours is a simple wedding, where even when couple are far away physically, say they both are at different locations grazing cattle, if the fathers of the couple shake hands and agree on a mutual agreement then the marriage is over and the couple can start living together in the same house. No dowry or whatsoever is followed, because we don't consider giving away our girl rather welcoming a groom's family into ours," said K Theerthagiri (48), a member of the malai kuravan community from Kuthiraichandal village in Kallakurichi.
According to sources, the members of the community use exactly nine betel leaves and nine betel nuts with Rs 35 as a token to exchange the nuptial agreement. The money is accounted as '18 verani' in their native language, where one verani equals Rs 3.50. So, from the total Rs 63 only Rs 35 will be used in the wedding agreement while the remaining is given as a subsidy to the groom's family.
"The remaining amount is again considered a token by the bride's family because unlike other communities, the bride's family take a hierarchical claim of the granddaughter, for which the amount is given as a compensation."
Among the Irular community, the weddings are rather simple with very few rituals, as the sources said, an elderly person in the clan would marry the couple in front of their traditional/native deity with no dowry.
"In our families, we are more concerned about the bond between the couple. Mostly it is a love marriage as our people believe that only when love blossoms, the couple can live together as husband and wife. We are not against inter-caste love, for the same reason. There is no idea of honour killing or caste pride in marriage for our Irular people," said P Mari, a teacher from the Irular community in Gingee.
Mari is also a social worker who helps children from the tribe get community certificates. The kaatunayakan tribe have a colourful wedding as their weddings are dominated by songs sung by the families during the nuptial agreement talks. Sources said that the agreement between the two families will be rolled out as a song with correspondences as lyrics.
"The song will begin by describing each other's family heritage and how the bride/groom was raised, the family practices in food, arts and hunting. Then we slowly move on to how both the families would love to marry the couple. We finish off by wishing each other's families good luck and good health," said K Elumalai Perumal (66) from Kanjanur, an elderly person from the kaatunayakan tribe residing in the region.
In all the three communities, there are not any severe restrictions in choosing the partner. The tribal communities are more open to inter-caste love and deny the practice of giving dowry, though in the recent past the culture had begun among them as an influence of other communities in the society.