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Pulappedi ‘Pulappedi’ literally means ‘scare of the Pulayas’. It refers to a popular belief in Kerala that men of the lowliest of the polluting castes such as Pulayas, Parayas and Mannans used to appropriate young women of the higher Nair caste after defiling them. Depending upon the caste and the region involved, it was also called Parappedi or Mannappedi.1

The traditional view of the custom The earliest known mention of this scare, though not the name, was made in some detail by Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese national stationed in Kerala at the beginning of the 16th century, in the context of describing the social plight of the Pulaya caste.2 Another early reference to it, again without mentioning the name of the custom and with some variations from that of Barbosa, is that of Shaykh Zaynud-Din, a Muslim cleric of Malabar, who wrote sometime in the second half of the 16th century.3 The most detailed study of the custom till date is that of Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai.4 According to Elamkulam, Pulappedi was a ritual observed throughout Kerala during a certain period every year in which men of the Pulaya, Paraya and Mannan castes would roam around freely with the knowledge and permission of all communities of the locality and defile Nair women who strayed alone outside their houses or were left unprotected inside their homes or wished to be defiled and possessed. The period differed from region to region. Defiling was done by touching the woman or hitting her with a twig or a pebble, or by just sighting her and hollering ‘kande, kande’ (I saw, I saw). When defiled, the woman would lose her caste. She should herself declare it publicly, run away from her home and subject to be appropriated by the defiler, or become a beggar or a mendicant, or allow to be converted to another religion. If not, she could be killed with impunity by her own people, or killed or sold to any willing bidder by the local chief. The defiler and his kith and kin, on their part, could also be killed or tortured as the Nairs or the local chiefs pleased.5 The general view among the historians is that Pulappedi was actually practised till some time back. They have, therefore, tried to explain only its origin, significance and related issues. Elamkulam explained it as a ‘social licence given to the slave castes sometime in 12th century C.E. after the size of the original slave castes in Kerala began to dwindle to procreate in abducted Nair women a mixed caste of slaves so as to arrest their decline’.6 M.G.S.Narayanan suggested that it was a symptom of the underlying tension between the Nairs and the Pulayas. 7 K.N.Ganesh said that it was an instance of the breaking of social rules and traditions by an oppressed class becoming a convention.8 A Critique of the traditional view In a detailed critique of the traditional view, especially Elamkulam’s, published in 1994, P.P.Sudhakaran suggested that Pulappedi, along with its variants of Parappedi and Mannappedi, was not a custom practised as was popularly believed, but only a scare perpetrated within the Nair community to prevent its women from straying outside the caste and family taboos.9 He has pointed out: 1. that there are no historical records of any instance of a Nair woman ever coming under Pulappedi; 2. that there is no way of ascertaining whether it was ever practised as was described by Elamkulam; 3. that Elamkulam had said on one occasion that he had only ‘heard that it was rarely practised in some rural areas till a few generations ago’10, and on another that it ‘was practised in Malabar till the beginning of the British rule (18th century end) and in Venad (Travancore) till it was abolished through a proclamation by its ruler’ in 1696 C.E.11; 4. that Barbosa and Zaynud-Din were also not witnesses to any actual instance of Pulappedi; and 5. that, though not practised, there was a palpable scare, as is indicated by its banning. In his view, Elamkulam’s account is a confused mix of traditional beliefs, some misreading of Barbosa, and his own imagination. In support of this critique, he has put forward the following reasons: 1.	The social distancing between the polluting castes and the Nairs was so pernicious (Logan has recorded the distance a Pulayan had to keep from a member of the higher caste as 64 feet because of atmospheric pollution12, the huts of the polluting castes were located in such isolated areas, and the physical marks of the polluting castes were so distinct and loud13 that it would have been impossible for a polluter to go anywhere near a Nair habitat even in ordinary times except perhaps with the overt or covert permission of the Nairs. 2.	The polluter could not have defiled any Nair woman by surprise either as the Pulappedi season was known to all in advance14, and it needed only some extra vigilance by the Nairs during that period to prevent it. 3.	The life environment of the polluting castes compared to that of the Nairs being so depressing, and the other options available to a defiled woman being so devastating, no Nair woman in her senses would ever have risked coming under Pulappedi. 4.	The punishment for the polluter, whether caught before the act or after or at any time, was known in advance to be so cruel and certain that none but a maniac would have dared to provoke the Nair fury. Barbosa says that if anyone polluted one among the Nairs, the polluted person’s “kinsfolk slay him [the polluter] forthwith and in vengeance therefore they slay Poleas [Pulayas] until they are weary without suffering any punishment.”15 5.	The role of the polluter, a bonded slave of the Nairs, in this plot could have been to obey the commands of the master, and defile or claim to have defiled the woman chosen by the master, or acquiesce to the charge of defiling the woman without actually defiling. 6.	The castes connected with Pulappedi were believed to practice sorcery (‘odi’ in Malayalam), changing one’s form into that of an animal or disappear into thin air16, which gave those who scripted the story of defiling and abduction a credible alibi for failing to stop it in spite of being on maximum vigilance. This could be the reason why the Pulayan, Parayan and Mannan castes alone were associated with the scare, even though there were many more polluting castes. In his view, the Nair society, though matrilineal in structure, was out and out patriarchal in its functioning, and was enforcing rules of female morality much more harshly than the patrilineal Malayali Brahmins; Pulappedi was one of the methods it devised to achieve that end.

References. 1.	Sreedhara Menon, A., A Survey of Kerala History, Sahitya Pravarthaka Co-operative Society Ltd., Kottayam, August 1967, p. 261. 2.	Barbosa, Duarte, The Book, Vol. II, Hakluyt Society, London, 1921, pp.68-69 3.	Zaynud-Din, Shaykh, Tuhfat-ul-Mujahidin (Arabic), Translation by Muhammad Husayn Nainar, Madras University Press, Madras, 1942, p.50. 4.	Kunjan Pillai, Elamkulam, “Mannappediyum Pulappediyum’, Annathe Keralam (Malayalam), National Book Stall, Kottayam, October 1959, pp.109 – 125. 5.	Kunjan Pillai, Mannappediyum Pulappediyum, ibid., pp. 109 – 114. 6.	Kunjan Pillai, Mannappediyum Pulappediyum, ibid., p. 123. 7.	Narayanan, M.G.S., Cultural Symbiosis in Kerala, Sandhya Publications, Calicut, 1972, p. 9. 8.	Ganesh, K.N., Keralathinte Innalekal, Department of Cultural Publications, Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, 1990, p.329. 9.	Sudhakaran, P.P., “Pulappedi – Puthiya Oranveshanam”, Kerala Padanangal 4, (Malayalam), January – March, 1994, Ed. K.T.Ram Mohan, Chithira Printers & Publishers, Ernakulam, pp. 484 – 509. 10.	 Kunjan Pillai, Mannappediyum Pulappediyum, ibid., p. 109. 11.	 Kunjan Pillai, Mannappediyum Pulappediyum, ibid., pp. 110 – 111. 12.	 Logan, William, Malabar Manual, Vol. I, (first published 1887), Charitram Publications, Trivandrum, (Reprint) 1981, pp. 144 – 145. 13.	 Barbosa, The Book II, ibid., pp. 68 – 69. Zaynud-Din, Tuhfat-al-Mujahidin, ibid., pp. 47 – 48, 50. 14.	 Kunjan Pillai, Mannappediyum Pulappediyum, ibid., p. 113. 15.	 Barbosa, The Book Vol. II, ibid., p. 69. 16.	 Thurston, Edgar, “Chapter III: Omens, Evil Eye, Charms, Animal Superstitions, Sorcery etc.”, in Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, Government Press, 1904, pp. 314 – 318.