Pulaya

Clans and Kinship

The Malabar District Gazetteer (1908), quoted by Thurston (1909), divides the Cherumans or Pulayas of Malabar into many groups, some of which married only within themselves. The Pulayas of Chirakkal in north Malabar it divides into eleven exogamous groups and one endogamous group, and among the Era Cherumans and Kanakkans of the south it records exogamous groups called kuttams, in some of which marriage with relations on the mother's side was forbidden. In Cochin, L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer (1906) found that marriage within the same koottam, or family group, was forbidden, and that in Chittur taluk a young man might marry among his father's relations but not his mother's. None of these sources says how descent is reckoned. From 1907 community bodies, beginning with Ayyankali's Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham and later bodies such as the All-Cochin Pulaya Maha Sabha of 1913, took on much of the community's public life.

The eleven exogamous groups of the Pulayas of Chirakkal in north Malabar (now Kannur district), in the order and spelling of the Malabar District Gazetteer (Innes and Evans, 1908, vol. 1, p. 134), which Thurston (1909) quotes; the Gazetteer names one further group that married only within itself. They were recorded for one taluk over a century ago and are not a list for Pulaya families elsewhere.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Caste

  Kerala, Tamil Nadu

  Listed as: Pulayan

  Kerala 'Pulayan, Cheramar, Pulaya, Pulayar, Cherama, Cheraman, Wayanad Pulayan, Wayanadan Pulayan, Matha, Matha Pulayan'; Tamil Nadu 'Pulayan, Cheramar' (Census 2011, Table A-10 Appendix).

Checked in Census 2011 Table A-10 Appendix for Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and against Wikipedia's compilation of the Scheduled Castes order. Both states also list Cheruman as a separate entry (Kerala 317,218 people in 2011). Thurston (1909) treats Cheruman as the South Malabar name of the same people, but whether families recorded under that entry count themselves Pulaya was not checked, so it is not shown here.

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

Pulaya and Cheramar are both names of the community, and the order lists them together. The derivation of the names was not settled in the sources checked for this page. Traditions recorded by L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer (1906) hold that the Pulayas once ruled parts of the country: the Pulayas of north Travancore honoured a chief called Aikkara Yajaman, whose ancestors were held to be Pulaya kings, and a hill near Thiruvananthapuram called Pulayanar Kotta is said to have been the seat of a Pulaya king.

History

In Travancore the Pulayar were regarded as the slaves of the agrarian order, worked as bonded labour for landlords, and could neither own land nor enter temples. From the mid nineteenth century mission schools, among them those of the London Missionary Society, admitted a few Pulayar children who had become Christians; the Pulaya Charity School opened in Thiruvananthapuram in 1861. Ayyankali (1863 to 1941) of Venganoor near Thiruvananthapuram drove his own bullock cart along a public road barred to the community in 1893; by 1900 the Pulayar could use most roads in the state. In 1907 he founded the Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham, which campaigned for entry to government schools and raised funds for Pulayar-run schools, and when a school was burned after he tried to enrol a Pulayar girl he led a strike of agricultural labourers until the government lifted caste restrictions on schooling; the date of the strike is given as 1907 to 1908 or as 1915. Pulaya women won the right to cover the upper body in public by 1915 to 1916, a struggle in which Ayyankali was central. He later sat in the Sree Moolam Popular Assembly of Travancore.

Faith and Worship

Pulaya families are Hindu or Christian. Conversion to Christianity grew among the oppressed communities of Travancore after 1860, and the mission schools of the period admitted only converts.

Customs

The Pulaya are known for their music and dances, among them the kolam-thullal, a masked dance that belongs to rites of exorcism, the mudi-attam or hair-dance, which grew from a fertility rite, and the chozhikali of central Kerala. Ayyankali's birth anniversary on 28 August is kept by his descendants and by community bodies.

Festivals

Stories and Legends

Notable Personalities