Post 5:
<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Sep 3 2006, 09:19 AM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Sep 3 2006, 09:19 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>For those, who say Christians opposed untouchability and castism in India:</span>
Captain Swanton's Memoir Of The Primitive Church Of Malayala
Presented to Royal Asiatic Soceity on January 5th, 1833
By Captain Charles Swanston of East India Company, Madras
[right][snapback]56690[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Related.
This and next 3 posts contain excerpts taken from:
<b>Northists and Southists: A Folklore of Kerala Christians</b>, Richard Michael Swiderski, <i>Asian Folklore Studies</i>, Vol. 47, No. 1. (1988), pp. 73-92.
<b>Several things to be noted on the excerpts: </b>
(1) There are two groups of the early community of Syrian Christians in India. They had long been divided into the Southist (Knanaya) and Northist sides. Both sides have <i>numerous myths explaining their origins and the origin of the division</i>.
(2) Both sides try to say they are racially pure and claim the other is 'low' ('low-caste' origins and even slave origins, or derived from Thomas' concubine or even someone else's concubine).
(3) These two subsects of Syrian christians in India have long been arguing within themselves, like christians have been doing all over the world. Europeans in India have written on their disputes which sometimes led to one side killing members of the other.
(4) Both look down on 'low-caste' converts and think it is a slight to have any in their ancestry. So much for christianity having always been for equality.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Christians have distinguished themselves into two mutually exclusive sections, the Northists and the Southists. While Kerala Christians today seldom acknowledge this division, it has been the theme of bitter polemic in the past and remains a basis for the invention of tradition in the present. The Malayalam names for the Christian divisions are always Tekkumbhagar-Vadakumbhagar, but the English equivalents may be Nordhist-Suddhist or Northerner-Southerner, though Northist-Southist is most common. I first learned of them in discussions with Knanaya, members of a Kerala Christian ethnic group, who say they were once called Southists and occasionally repeat older legends to explain the name. Though there are no living oral traditions to this effect, written sources record that early Brahmin settlements in Kerala grouped themselves into " northern " and " southern " divisions around two rival centers (Veluthat n.d.). The Nayars, an important Hindu caste in Kerala, also recognized a north/south dividing line (Fuller 1976). Another important dual classification, the rightlleft caste division which some Tamil communities (Beck 1972; Appadurai 1974) employ, I have not found in Kerala usage. It is quite possible that the Christians copied the north/south division from the prestigious Brahmin community as they copied so many other Brahmin traits.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"Quite possible" = speculation here, as the christians themselves variously trace their mutual exclusivity to the wives of Thomas of Cana, see next post.
Even here they attempt to transfer the blame for this christian community's divisive practises onto Hinduism.These Syrian Christians of Kerala divided themselves based on <i>their own ever-changing myths</i>.
<i>One</i> of the Southist myths on how the N-S division came about:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->DIVISION BY LOCATION
A succinct legend expressing the northist/southist division was set down by Mr. V. J. Jacob in the Foreward to the volume produced for the consecration of St. Mary's Jacobite Syrian Church, Calicut (1982):
[boring myths related to a Thomas of Cana coming to India]
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On landing in Cranganore in <b>345 A.D.</b> they were greeted by the King Cheraman Perumal and the native Christians there. The Perumal honored them by confirming many titles and privileges and allowed them to settle as a separate Community in a tax free land gifted to them on the Southern side of the Mahadevapuram Township nearby; the northern part already occupied by the native St.Thomas Christians. Thus the Division as Southerners and Northerners among Syrian Christians in Kerala. These immigrant Syrian Christians known as Knanayits maintain a separate Caste type Community even to-day, confirming their marriages within their race only.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The narrative describes the transfer of Syrian Christianity to Malabar while asserting Patriarch's (which Patriarch is another matter) control over the Christians in that area. The mission of 400 under the leadership of Thomas of Cana are vessels of that transfer and agents of the Patriarch's authority. They settle in Cranganore under a mandate to preserve their cultural and racial identity in contradistinction to the " native St. Thomas Christians " (cf. Brown 1982, 70-71). In Mr. Jacob's version of the legend the immigrants' distinctiveness is ratified by the location of their settlement: they establish themselves on the south side of the city apart from the native Christians on the north side, becoming Southists as opposed to the Northists (cf. Tisserant 1957, 8). Mr. Jacob, himself a Knanaya, in this narrative derives his own group directly from Southists emphatically set apart from Northists.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->(1) The version of the myth related above is <b>not the earliest</b> myth on the N-S divide that the Syrian christians used to give. The earliest ones come in the next post.
(2) Remember the date given above: "345 A.D." Because in a later post, another myth on how the N-S division came about will be related. In it, you'll find mention that they fled to India due to <i>islamic</i> invasions... which cannot be in 345 because there was no islam then!
It seems both Northists and Southists are now Catholic? (Because of the persecutions and conversions by the Portuguese, I assume.) Then they're no longer of the supposedly 'Orthodox' form of Syrian christianity - see here:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In several places-Kaduthuruthy, for instance-Southist churches stand a short distance away from large churches of the same denomination (Catholic) intended for non-Southists, or Northists. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Sep 3 2006, 09:19 AM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Sep 3 2006, 09:19 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>For those, who say Christians opposed untouchability and castism in India:</span>
Captain Swanton's Memoir Of The Primitive Church Of Malayala
Presented to Royal Asiatic Soceity on January 5th, 1833
By Captain Charles Swanston of East India Company, Madras
[right][snapback]56690[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Related.
This and next 3 posts contain excerpts taken from:
<b>Northists and Southists: A Folklore of Kerala Christians</b>, Richard Michael Swiderski, <i>Asian Folklore Studies</i>, Vol. 47, No. 1. (1988), pp. 73-92.
<b>Several things to be noted on the excerpts: </b>
(1) There are two groups of the early community of Syrian Christians in India. They had long been divided into the Southist (Knanaya) and Northist sides. Both sides have <i>numerous myths explaining their origins and the origin of the division</i>.
(2) Both sides try to say they are racially pure and claim the other is 'low' ('low-caste' origins and even slave origins, or derived from Thomas' concubine or even someone else's concubine).
(3) These two subsects of Syrian christians in India have long been arguing within themselves, like christians have been doing all over the world. Europeans in India have written on their disputes which sometimes led to one side killing members of the other.
(4) Both look down on 'low-caste' converts and think it is a slight to have any in their ancestry. So much for christianity having always been for equality.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Christians have distinguished themselves into two mutually exclusive sections, the Northists and the Southists. While Kerala Christians today seldom acknowledge this division, it has been the theme of bitter polemic in the past and remains a basis for the invention of tradition in the present. The Malayalam names for the Christian divisions are always Tekkumbhagar-Vadakumbhagar, but the English equivalents may be Nordhist-Suddhist or Northerner-Southerner, though Northist-Southist is most common. I first learned of them in discussions with Knanaya, members of a Kerala Christian ethnic group, who say they were once called Southists and occasionally repeat older legends to explain the name. Though there are no living oral traditions to this effect, written sources record that early Brahmin settlements in Kerala grouped themselves into " northern " and " southern " divisions around two rival centers (Veluthat n.d.). The Nayars, an important Hindu caste in Kerala, also recognized a north/south dividing line (Fuller 1976). Another important dual classification, the rightlleft caste division which some Tamil communities (Beck 1972; Appadurai 1974) employ, I have not found in Kerala usage. It is quite possible that the Christians copied the north/south division from the prestigious Brahmin community as they copied so many other Brahmin traits.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"Quite possible" = speculation here, as the christians themselves variously trace their mutual exclusivity to the wives of Thomas of Cana, see next post.
Even here they attempt to transfer the blame for this christian community's divisive practises onto Hinduism.These Syrian Christians of Kerala divided themselves based on <i>their own ever-changing myths</i>.
<i>One</i> of the Southist myths on how the N-S division came about:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->DIVISION BY LOCATION
A succinct legend expressing the northist/southist division was set down by Mr. V. J. Jacob in the Foreward to the volume produced for the consecration of St. Mary's Jacobite Syrian Church, Calicut (1982):
[boring myths related to a Thomas of Cana coming to India]
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On landing in Cranganore in <b>345 A.D.</b> they were greeted by the King Cheraman Perumal and the native Christians there. The Perumal honored them by confirming many titles and privileges and allowed them to settle as a separate Community in a tax free land gifted to them on the Southern side of the Mahadevapuram Township nearby; the northern part already occupied by the native St.Thomas Christians. Thus the Division as Southerners and Northerners among Syrian Christians in Kerala. These immigrant Syrian Christians known as Knanayits maintain a separate Caste type Community even to-day, confirming their marriages within their race only.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The narrative describes the transfer of Syrian Christianity to Malabar while asserting Patriarch's (which Patriarch is another matter) control over the Christians in that area. The mission of 400 under the leadership of Thomas of Cana are vessels of that transfer and agents of the Patriarch's authority. They settle in Cranganore under a mandate to preserve their cultural and racial identity in contradistinction to the " native St. Thomas Christians " (cf. Brown 1982, 70-71). In Mr. Jacob's version of the legend the immigrants' distinctiveness is ratified by the location of their settlement: they establish themselves on the south side of the city apart from the native Christians on the north side, becoming Southists as opposed to the Northists (cf. Tisserant 1957, 8). Mr. Jacob, himself a Knanaya, in this narrative derives his own group directly from Southists emphatically set apart from Northists.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->(1) The version of the myth related above is <b>not the earliest</b> myth on the N-S divide that the Syrian christians used to give. The earliest ones come in the next post.
(2) Remember the date given above: "345 A.D." Because in a later post, another myth on how the N-S division came about will be related. In it, you'll find mention that they fled to India due to <i>islamic</i> invasions... which cannot be in 345 because there was no islam then!
It seems both Northists and Southists are now Catholic? (Because of the persecutions and conversions by the Portuguese, I assume.) Then they're no longer of the supposedly 'Orthodox' form of Syrian christianity - see here:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In several places-Kaduthuruthy, for instance-Southist churches stand a short distance away from large churches of the same denomination (Catholic) intended for non-Southists, or Northists. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->