A kind of edible truffle (Mylitta lapidescens) is known as little man's bread on the Nilgiris. The Badaga legendary name for it is Pandva-unna-buthi, or dwarf bundle of food, [85] i.e., food of the dwarfs, who are supposed once to have inhabited the Nilgiris and built the pandu kulis or kistvaens.
The story goes that Lord Elphinstone, a former Governor of Madras, was anxious to build a residence at Kaiti. But the Badagas, who had on the desired site a sacred tree, would not part with the land. The Governor's steward succeeded in making the Badaga headman drunk, and secured, for a rental of thirty-five rupees annually, the site, whereon a villa was built, which now belongs to the Basel Mission. [86]
In a recent work, [87] Mr. A. H. Keane, in a note on the "Dravidian Aborigines," writes as follows. "All stand on the very lowest rung of the social ladder, being rude hillmen without any culture strictly so called, and often betraying marked negroid characters, as if they were originally Negroes or Negritos, later assimilated in some respects to their Dravidian conquerors. As they never had a collective racial name, they should now be called, not Dravidians or proto-Dravidians, but rather pre-Dravidians, as more collectively indicating their true ethnical relations. Such are the Kotas, Irulas, Badagas, and Kurumbas." It may be pointed out that the Badagas and Kotas of the Nilgiri plateau are not "wild tribes," have no trace of negroid characters, and no affinities with the Kurumbas and Irulas of the Nilgiri slopes. The figures in the following table speak for themselves:--
=========+=======================+====================== | Stature. | Nasal Index. +=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+====== | A | B | C | D | E | F =========+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+====== Badaga | 164.1 | 180.2 | 159.9 | 75.6 | 88.4 | 62.7 Kota | 162.9 | 174.2 | 155. | 77.2 | 92.9 | 64. Irula | 159.8 | 168. | 152. | 84.9 | 100. | 72.3 Kurumba | 157.5 | 163.6 | 149.6 | 88.8 | 111. | 79.1 =========+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+======
Column Headers: A = Average cm. B = Maximum cm. C = Minimum cm. D = Average. E = Maximum. F = Minimum.
Badagi.--The carpenter sub-division of Panchalas.