புறநானூற்றில் வேடர் இனவரைவியல் / Ethnography of Veddas in Purananooru

Abstract

Sangam Literature is a biographical record of the Ancient Tamil People. One of the Sangam texts, “Purananooru”, is a ‘historical repository and an ‘ethnographic’ document. “Purananooru” can be considered an ethnographic repository of various ethnic groups like Kuravas, Ayars, and Paratavars. The poets who interacted with the lives of the ancient people have recorded their life and characteristics of the ethnic group in literature like a field study. “Purananooru” is an ethnographic study of each ethnic group. Purananooru is a record of the vast land where various ethnic groups lived in friendship and enmity with each other. Such an anthropological record is worth examining in terms of the geography of the “Purananooru”. When one looks at those who have worked with hunting as their livelihood, their culture and social importance can be understood in the habitats of the hunters, Dietary products, hunting knowledge, feasting, and the way of eating. Their ethnography can be identified through the record of Vedars found in “Purananooru” who lived there, and may have become hunters. Later they were included in the armies of the kings and became small land Lords. It can be felt that there was a great fascination for the profession of hunting and a great disdain for the hunters of that profession. Songs in Sangam Literature record that knowing the forest and knowing the animatics of animals and birds became the life knowledge of the hunters. The materials they use exhibit their living culture. Hence, the article aims to study the Ethnography of Veddas found in “Purananooru”.

Keywords

• ethnography
• veddas
• purananooru.