A Tulu stage play : 'Kariyajjerna katekulu'

Rangavathar stage group presented a memorable Tulu stage play on Sunday 7th October,2007 at Town-hall auditorium, Mangalore. “Kariajjerna katekulu” is based on the short stories written by award winning Tulu writer D.K.Chouta. The play was directed by Krishnamurthy Kavattar who sharpened his theatrical shills under the famed Ninasam group of Heggodu.
The drama based on collage of four short stories selected from the D.K.Chouta’s book of the same name reflects the Tulu culture and attitude effectively employing neo-style audio-visual theatrical techniques. The rural “guthu” culture, spirit worship of Lord Malaraya, the Kola and Nema, the recitation of stanzas from of Yakshagana folk theatre, the attendance of aborigines-all these elements woven deftly into the drama. The guthus (guthu= a large household of a landlord) were the traditional centres of power at rural level in Tulunad since historical times. The backdrop and props of ornate wooden pillar, buta mancha and the scarecrow (representing the paddy field) characteristic of rural Tulu homes makes the theme meaningful. The entire Rangavathar team and the writer Chouta deserve congratulations for the experimental stage play.
One particular usage in the drama that stuck me was the term “mooladakulu” to refer to the scheduled servants attending the “guthu”. (“Mooladakulu” literally means “those from the origin” or aborigines.) More about aborigines in some other posts.

40.Early evolution of words and languages

The concept of the African origin and migration of mankind worldwide suggests that languages also might have originated and migrated in the similar way. Prehistoric According to the mother tongue theory of origin of languages, the human migrations appear to have led to the present diverse distribution of worlds languages.
The languages appear to have originated as primitive sounds in the beginning that eventually evolved into morphemes and words. Words were combined to form sentences to supplement the gestures and to facilitate accuracy of expression. Migration of people to different locations around the globe introduced umpteen variations in the words, adoption of the new words, pattern and style of combing words into sentences, usages and grammars depending on the environment of the settlement and the association of pre-existing, resident people. Thus evolution and migrations and diverse environments have produced different and complex languages.
The primitive oral /spoken languages evolved some 130,000 years ago with development of the gene FOXP2 associated with speech. Most of the communications, including the literature and education in the early days were in oral format. Subsequently the necessity of keeping business accounts and preservation and documentation of literature led to the evolution of writing about 5000 years ago.
Linguists like Meritt Ruhlen (1994) consider that all extant languages share a common origin and similar words in different languages are usually the result of divergent evolution from a single earlier language.
Most of the basic morphemes (parts of the word) and words originated among the early civilizations and spread around the globe along with trends and patterns of human migration and habitation.
Sumerian civilization in the Mediterranean valleys of Euphrates and Tigris (now parts of Iraq and Iran) is considered to be one of the early civilizations that developed and flourished during the period 6000 to 2000 BC. There could have been contemporaneous or older civilizations in other parts of the world like India, but these have not been sufficiently documented.
In the light of basic theory of evolution of words and the languages outlined above, we can expect to find some of the basic Tulu morphemes and words in the earliest civilizations, like those developed in the vicinity of the place of origin of the mankind, the northern Africa.

39. One human family with many variations

The declaration of the ancient Indian Sanskrit adage “Vasudaiva kutumbakam” (=the whole world is one family) is in concurrence with the findings of the science that infer human beings originated in Africa, who with time upon proliferation, migrated and populated diverse parts of the globe.
The present day global human population presents so many variations in skin, eye and hair colors. Many natural geological processes that affected the Earth have contributed to the mutations in human genes that in turn created new variants in the physical characteristics leading to diversity of human races.
Major volcanic episodes after the origin of human beings like that of Mt. Toba, Sumatra (ca.74, 000 years ago) probably had drastic effect on extant human races. The heavy clouds of dust storms and the nuclear winter that followed the devastating volcanic eruption may have produced serious mutational effects on the physiology and genetic characters of human beings that eventually survived the catastrophe.
Similarly other natural calamities like earthquakes,desertification and migration/diversion/drying up of rivers have influenced human migrations and in turn interactions with differing human groups.
Post LGM evolution of skin colors
The Last Glaciation Maximum (or the Pleistocene ice age) around 10,000 years ago caused drastic lowering of ultraviolet rays in the atmosphere especially in the northern hemisphere. This led to the reduction of melanin pigment in the skin and modification of genetic characters with development of fair skinned people in the cold areas and intermediate colors (ranges of fair to brown shades) in the temperate zones. The melanin content in the skin dictates the color of skin in human beings.
The brown skinned people were developed due to mutation in genes. Polymorphisms in three genes, SLC24A5, TYR and SLC45A2 that are related to the melanin content in the skin collectively account for most of the natural variations of skin pigmentation in the south Asian people. Human skin and hair color is also said to be controlled in part by MCIR gene.
Human skin color is geographically stratified and correlate with environmental level of ultraviolet radiation. Genetic studies suggest that the Europeans and East Asians acquired fair skin colors through different genetic means. The evolution of the light skin post-dates the Ice Age with SLC24A5 and the blue-eye variant of OCA2 both genes showing to significant rise in frequency within the last 10,000 years.
Most of the significant stages in the global human evolution in terms of culture and civilization post date the ice age and by then different colored human beings in different parts of the globe had evolved.
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38.Earliest Indian Tribes

The oldest known human fossils of homo sapiens, designated Omo I and Omo II, were discovered from the Omo river valley in Ethiopia by Richard Leakey and were dated to be 195,000 years old. The journey of mankind from 165,000 to 8000 years before present, coinciding with the pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer nomadic phase of human evolution, inferred based on the genetic studies of mtDNA and Y- chromosomes, reveals that almost entire globe was populated by the mankind before 8000 years as result of incessant migrations during the last 150,000 years. With such extensive migratory trends it can assumed that mankind almost evolved and perfected verbal/lingual communications in this huge period. The factors of time, distance, environment and tribes have introduced so many variations in the languages of the world that simple genetic connections between languages can be hardly deciphered.
The data in the compilation of journey of mankind suggests that:
1). 85,000-75,000 years ago.
The first phase (batch) of human migration from Africa to India. The earliest Indian settlers.
2). 74,000 years ago.
The massive volcanic eruption documented at Mt. Toba in Sumatra. It was followed by heavy dust storms that led to nuclear winter in the entire south Asian region with volcanic dust dissipations spreading up to India for six years. Volcanic activity was followed by a millennium of ice age. Widespread devastation of the human beings, animals and plants possibly occurred in most of the southern Asia.
3). 74,000-65,000 years ago. A group of tribal people entered India from the north east Assam and Bengal from the Borneo side.
4).65,000 -52,000 years ago.
Two way coastal migrations into India have been visualized:
(a).One branch from NW India migrating along the West Coast. This is second phase of migration from Africa, possibly more evolved anatomically than the first batch.
(b).Other branch from Bengal side migrating via East coast. This is the first batch returning from the tour of South-east Asia and Australia. Possibly this branch represents the advent of Austro-Asiatic (Munda) tribes into India.
5) 10,000 years ago. The global Ice Age also called the Last Glacial Maximum(LGM).
The Glaciation caused lowering of sea levels to the tune of about 100m.This facilitated human migrations across the continents and land masses as many of the land bridges were exposed and people were able to cross the sea routes through the exposed land bridges.
The sea had retreated exposing wider land coastal mass and the land bridge between India and Srilanka (‘Ram Sethu’ or the Adams bridge) was more accessible for human migrations across the sea from India to Srilanka and vice versa. These geological-geographic aspects have ramifications that inspired some of the famous folklores of India.

37. Early Human migrations

Earliest known human beings originated in the eastern Africa some 165,000 years ago as understood by the anthropological studies based on the occurrence of oldest known human fossils found in the Ethiopia. Genetic studies of mtDNA and Y chromosomes coupled with paleontology, paleo-climate and archeology point out that early human beings originated in East Africa and migrated to different continents as hunters and gatherers wandered in the ensuing period.
The broad trends of global migration in the earliest human history are outlined below based on the compilations of Bradshaw foundation based on the data from Prof. Stephen Oppenheimer. The data are limited to the period 160,000 and 10,000 years before past. Migrations after the prominent ice age (10,000 years before present), introduction of agriculture (8000 years before present) and the development of civilizations, therefore, are grossly missing in the studies done so far.

Years ago. Broad Human Migration events and climate
160,000. Origin of homo sapiens in East Africa
160,000-135,000. Hunters and gatherers. Migration along four divergent paths from Ethiopia. First generation mtDNA gene type L1
135,000-115,000. Migrations: Sahara> Nile>Levant
115,000-90,000. Levant branch died out. Desertification of North Africa. Reoccupied by Neanderthal man
90,000-85,000. Migrations: Red Sea> Arabian Coast> India. All non-African races evolved from this branch.
85,000-74,000. Migrations:Srilanka>IndianOcean>W.Indonesia>Borneo>S.China
74,000. Volcanic eruption at Mt.Toba, Sumatra. Indian subcontinent covered by Volcanic fly ash deposits almost depopulated.
74,000-65,000. Migrations: Timor> Australia>New Guinea. Repopulation of Indian subcontinent
65,000-52,000. Warming of climate around 52,000 years
52,000-45,000. Mini -ice age. Paleolithic culture.
45,000-40,000. Migrations: 1.East Asia coast >Central Asia >Steppe >NE Asia.2.Pakistan>Central Asia.3.Indochina>Tibet
40,000-25,000. Migrations: Central Asia>East Europe. Cave arts in France
25,000-22,000. Migrations: Siberia>Alaska through Bering land bridge. Native Americans
22,000-19,000. North Europe Asia, North America almost depopulated.
19,000-15,000.Last Glacial Maximum, 18,000 years ago. Bradshaw rock paintings, Australia.
15,000-12,500. Amelioration of global climate. Simple stone tools, flaxes, cobbles
12,500-10,000. Reoccupation of West America. Ice Age 10,000 years
10,000-8,000. End of Ice Age. Heralded agriculture. Sahara was grassland. Recolonization of Britain and Scandinavia.

36. Planets as Tulu proper names

One more aspect of the Pirak phase (ca. 2000-500 BC) of civilization of early Tulu tribes is the adoption of names of planets of our solar system as proper names. The group of sages who settled in the NW Indian subcontinent and composed the Vedas worshipped various planets and other forces of the nature and the environment. Animal, hero and spirit worship were in vogue among the contemporary Tulu and other tribes of the day. Brahma/Bermer worship was initiated there. The practice of astrology was popular at that time. It is reported that even Abraham practiced astrology in the beginning. Therefore, it is but natural that several tribes living there at that time adopted the names of the planets of the solar system.
Prof .Mariappa Bhat pointed out in one of his research papers regarding the prevalence of names of various planets and Sun in the proper names of Tulu people. The names also correspond with the names of the seven days of the week and are as follows:

English Sanskrit .>. Tulu*

Sun Aditya Aitha
Moon Soma Soma/Toma
Mars Angaraka Angare
Mercury Budha Booda
Jupiter Guru Guruve
Venus Shukra Tukra
Saturn Shani Taniya
*[Tulu proper names were used with suffixes of –anna,-appa or aiha]

Tulu people earlier preferred these proper names extensively but nowadays these are being discontinued as being out of fashion and in favour of modernity. Out of the Sanskrit equivalents only Aditya, Soma and Guru are still preferred and the rest have become almost obsolete.
The astrological studies in the NW Indian subcontinent continued and the basic scientific and mathematical principles were refined further in the later historical years. The astrological study centres spread into the Indian mainland regions like Jaipur and Delhi, with Jantar Mantar being the major showcase of our heritage in astronomical studies.
The existence of these recently vanishing planetary names among Tulu people are indicative of their historical heritage dating back to the approximate period 2000 to 500 BC.


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35. Ancient Spirit worship: Horse mounted heroes

Many are under the impression that the spirit worship is characteristically restricted to the coastal Tulunad (‘Bhutārādhane’) and Kerala (‘Teyyam’).The impression is created by the persistence and growth of the spirit cult in to an elaborate art forms in these regions.
The primitive cult of worshiping of spirits after the death of their mass heroes, under the belief that potent souls continue to live after death, existed widely the early historical societies. The spirit of Brahma, derived from the mass hero Abraham was one of the earliest spirit worships in the early civilizations around 2000-500 BC. Migrating Tulu tribes and their associates carried Bermer (<. Brahma) cult around 500 BC from the NW Indian subcontinent to the Karavali (coastal Karnataka) which became their subsequent homeland, the Tulunadu. The Tulu Bermer was imaged originally as a horse riding hero, probably a bearded one like Abraham. Similar horse riding hero image was retained for Bommayya (<. Brahma) by Halakki and other tribes of Uttara Kannada district. The Uttara Kannada area is in the migration route of the early Tulu tribes.
The image of horse riding Bermer was a dominating cult and concept for several subsequent centuries and the image was applied to many subsequently added spirits of that time. The spirit worship continued in the region.
The spirit worship was widespread in southern India in the beginning centuries of the Christian era. Khandoba and Mallanna are spirits of that time in the Deccan region. These spirits were shown in the images of horse riding heroes.
Khandoba is an ancient spirit deity worshipped originally by shepards and hunters in Maharastra.The spirit/ folk deity is also known as Khanderao, Khanderaya, and Malhari Martand. In Andhra Pradesh, the equivalent spirit is called Mallanna and in Karnataka he was variously called Mallappa, Mallaya, Mallara or Mailara Linga. The original image of Khandoba or Khanderao or Mallappa was in the form of a hero riding on a horse (or a bull as a later modification).
In Tulunadu, Mundittaya, a hero turned spirit, possibly dated back to 5th century AD, is also shown a horse riding spirit. Mundittaya possibly represents a hero from the Munda community that prevailed in the coastal region during early historical days.
With the ascent and domination of Shiva worship, between 6th and 10th centuries AD, the concept of Kandoba/ Mallappa spirit was modified and considered as Mārtanda Bhairava, an incarnation of Shiva. Mailara Linga was depicted in the form of a Lingam.

It appears that the Shiva cult or the Shaivism was also introduced to south India by Dravidian tribes that migrated to southern India and settled in the present Tamilnad, possibly during the period 500 to 100 BC.

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