Related to post 81:
The long-lasting division within the Syrian christians has been explained by the N and S communities themselves through many different origin myths. Most of them have to do with different myths on Thomas of Cana's two wives, which have likewise changed with the times as have their other usual myths (when they came to India, which Thomas brought them there, which communties this Thomas evangelised, and more). The section THOMAS OF CANA'S TWO WIVES explains several of these:
(1) The Southists were the descendants of his W-Asian Syrian wife, the Northists of his Indian Nair wife.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Northist/Southist legends all trace the division back to the arrival of the Syrian immigrants. A complex set of variants narrates the division as separation of two sides from a single point. A Society for the Propagation of Christian Literature missionary, the Reverend Thomas Keay, collected a legend (1938, 20) which further qualifies the Southist-Northist geographical division. The Southists, dwelling on the south bank of the Periyar, were the descendants of Thomas of Cana's union with a West Asian wife he had brought from Syria; the Northists, on the opposite bank, arose from his union with a native Nayar woman.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The author of the article, being an anthropologist (so it's expected of him), has to read some Brahmin-Nair concubine story into (1).
(2) The Southists were the descendants of his Nair wife, the Northists of his Indian Mukkuvan wife (fishing community, article describes them as 'low caste').
The author then remarks that (2) is similar to the Abraham-Sarah-Hagar case.
Anyway, version (2), though rarer, probably dates from a later time: when the Syrian immigrants wanted to entrench both Syrian Christian communities as a (partly) local community - both wives of this thomas got to be Indian in the second version.
In the above versions of the myth, the Southists (Knanayas) got to trump the Northists, due to some 'better' ancestry. More of the same, but the following bit also shows the Syrian christians <i>always</i> had many versions of the Thomas and Wives tale, and that the two groups were always quarrelling:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Knanaya today very infrequently allude to the <b>story of Thomas of Cana's two wives</b>, but the <b>older written sources contain numerous versions of the story</b>. Keay's unnamed Southist informant used the story to legitimate his group over the Northists. Keay himself printed the tale to show that the native Christians are engaged in a bitter quarrel over legitimacy and require guidance from the outside. This has long been the reason why outsiders recount the two-wife narrative. The first reference to the two wives of Thomas of Cana is in a letter written by the Jesuit missionary Monserrate in 1579 (Brown 1982, 176). Monserrate remarks that both wives were noble Malabar women but one was a slave because she was born under an inauspicious sign. He does not specify the racial or caste identity of either wife, nor does he mention Southist or Northist descendants. Monserrate's letter simply tells of a division within a polygynous native family without particular consequence for subsequent history. Monserrate wishes to demonstrate that superstitious Malabar Christians require the firm hand of European ecclesiasts to discourage barbarous practices and achieve the restoration of authentic Christian faith. Monserrate's legend does not take either the Northist or the Southist side, but deprived of this crucial specific still serves his purpose.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The above gives an additional bit of info: the catholic church (Europe) thought these Syrian christians are barbarous and practising the 'wrong christianity'. It is a fact of history that the catholic church decided to persecute the syrians christians in India and managed to convert many to catholicism.
Note how the myths keep changing: now a <i>modern explanation</i> of the N-S division, which describes christo-casteist sentiments of the Southist community - can't blame this one on Hinduism:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Contemporary Southists, the Knanaya, do not find the Nayar-Mukkuvan story intelligible. The caste differences upon which the narrative relies to achieve its Biblical analogy are not so strong today. The Southists do not ascribe Northist apartness to a polluted ancestress. They speak of Thomas of Cana's paternity, and of the two wives, but instead of identifying the social or caste standing of either they stress the divergent policies of the children. Those dwelling on the South side maintained rigid endogamy and did not welcome converts from low Hindu castes into their church while the Northists not only accepted converts but intermarried with them (Mundadan 1970, 97, n. 35). In one narrative I recorded from a Knanaya Jacobite priest, Thomas of Cana's two wives disappear entirely and the division is once again geographical in nature but now it is chiefly a division in conversion and marriage policy.
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->. . . The Christians who went to live in the north of Cranganore accepted converts into their churches and they mixed together with them. The others <b>remained pure. They resisted mixing.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This version responds to a present-day social issue: the admission of former " untouchables " into Christian ranks and their assimilation into Christian society. This is a " caste " matter within the Christian community. A group of " late " converts, the <b>Latin Catholics</b>, has taken shape in Kerala since the Portuguese domination. They themselves are divided into a number of ranked sub-groups (Ayyer 1926, 253-300), and despite their numbers have been confined to their own churches and barred from free intermarriage with the " older " Christians. The Latin Catholics have lately gained near equality to the Syrian Christians, though the stigma of their origins is recalled and intermarriage between Latin Catholics and the older Christian group is still difficult (Koilparambil 1982, 5-6; 264). There are yet more recent groups of converts who are <b>" New Christians,"</b> and not even classed among the Latin Catholics. <b>The Knanaya, ever sensitive to the issue of their purity</b>, have developed a legend which extends the category of Northists to include all of these converts in a mass opposed to the stalwart Southists. This justifies the Southists' policy of endogamy as nothing less than sustaining down to the present the Patriarch of Antioch's ancient enjoinder to keep the faith and <b>racial purity</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And more on this racial purity, anti-mixing with 'low castes':
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bilateral division narrated as a difference in long-term policy is clearly milder than the various two-wife stories, which identify the Northists as <b>low-caste mixed-bloods</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->In other words, going by their own long-held myths of the how and why of N-S segregation, it was pure racism that was the cause of these two groups' division.
The casteism in India's Syrian christian community developed from their earlier myth where all the Southists descended from Armenian/Syrian Thomas of Cana and his Syrian wife vs Northists who were his half-Indian descendants.
Then eventually, this "we're racially pure you aren't" infight between the two groups developed into not mixing with 'low caste converts'.
And then, both Northists and Southists still don't generally intermarry with the later Latin Catholics because of the "stigma of their (Latin Catholics') origins" - as per the text above. And the even more recent converts, the "new christians", are in for a long wait before they will be considered acceptable.
The long-lasting division within the Syrian christians has been explained by the N and S communities themselves through many different origin myths. Most of them have to do with different myths on Thomas of Cana's two wives, which have likewise changed with the times as have their other usual myths (when they came to India, which Thomas brought them there, which communties this Thomas evangelised, and more). The section THOMAS OF CANA'S TWO WIVES explains several of these:
(1) The Southists were the descendants of his W-Asian Syrian wife, the Northists of his Indian Nair wife.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Northist/Southist legends all trace the division back to the arrival of the Syrian immigrants. A complex set of variants narrates the division as separation of two sides from a single point. A Society for the Propagation of Christian Literature missionary, the Reverend Thomas Keay, collected a legend (1938, 20) which further qualifies the Southist-Northist geographical division. The Southists, dwelling on the south bank of the Periyar, were the descendants of Thomas of Cana's union with a West Asian wife he had brought from Syria; the Northists, on the opposite bank, arose from his union with a native Nayar woman.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The author of the article, being an anthropologist (so it's expected of him), has to read some Brahmin-Nair concubine story into (1).
(2) The Southists were the descendants of his Nair wife, the Northists of his Indian Mukkuvan wife (fishing community, article describes them as 'low caste').
The author then remarks that (2) is similar to the Abraham-Sarah-Hagar case.
Anyway, version (2), though rarer, probably dates from a later time: when the Syrian immigrants wanted to entrench both Syrian Christian communities as a (partly) local community - both wives of this thomas got to be Indian in the second version.
In the above versions of the myth, the Southists (Knanayas) got to trump the Northists, due to some 'better' ancestry. More of the same, but the following bit also shows the Syrian christians <i>always</i> had many versions of the Thomas and Wives tale, and that the two groups were always quarrelling:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Knanaya today very infrequently allude to the <b>story of Thomas of Cana's two wives</b>, but the <b>older written sources contain numerous versions of the story</b>. Keay's unnamed Southist informant used the story to legitimate his group over the Northists. Keay himself printed the tale to show that the native Christians are engaged in a bitter quarrel over legitimacy and require guidance from the outside. This has long been the reason why outsiders recount the two-wife narrative. The first reference to the two wives of Thomas of Cana is in a letter written by the Jesuit missionary Monserrate in 1579 (Brown 1982, 176). Monserrate remarks that both wives were noble Malabar women but one was a slave because she was born under an inauspicious sign. He does not specify the racial or caste identity of either wife, nor does he mention Southist or Northist descendants. Monserrate's letter simply tells of a division within a polygynous native family without particular consequence for subsequent history. Monserrate wishes to demonstrate that superstitious Malabar Christians require the firm hand of European ecclesiasts to discourage barbarous practices and achieve the restoration of authentic Christian faith. Monserrate's legend does not take either the Northist or the Southist side, but deprived of this crucial specific still serves his purpose.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The above gives an additional bit of info: the catholic church (Europe) thought these Syrian christians are barbarous and practising the 'wrong christianity'. It is a fact of history that the catholic church decided to persecute the syrians christians in India and managed to convert many to catholicism.
Note how the myths keep changing: now a <i>modern explanation</i> of the N-S division, which describes christo-casteist sentiments of the Southist community - can't blame this one on Hinduism:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Contemporary Southists, the Knanaya, do not find the Nayar-Mukkuvan story intelligible. The caste differences upon which the narrative relies to achieve its Biblical analogy are not so strong today. The Southists do not ascribe Northist apartness to a polluted ancestress. They speak of Thomas of Cana's paternity, and of the two wives, but instead of identifying the social or caste standing of either they stress the divergent policies of the children. Those dwelling on the South side maintained rigid endogamy and did not welcome converts from low Hindu castes into their church while the Northists not only accepted converts but intermarried with them (Mundadan 1970, 97, n. 35). In one narrative I recorded from a Knanaya Jacobite priest, Thomas of Cana's two wives disappear entirely and the division is once again geographical in nature but now it is chiefly a division in conversion and marriage policy.
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->. . . The Christians who went to live in the north of Cranganore accepted converts into their churches and they mixed together with them. The others <b>remained pure. They resisted mixing.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This version responds to a present-day social issue: the admission of former " untouchables " into Christian ranks and their assimilation into Christian society. This is a " caste " matter within the Christian community. A group of " late " converts, the <b>Latin Catholics</b>, has taken shape in Kerala since the Portuguese domination. They themselves are divided into a number of ranked sub-groups (Ayyer 1926, 253-300), and despite their numbers have been confined to their own churches and barred from free intermarriage with the " older " Christians. The Latin Catholics have lately gained near equality to the Syrian Christians, though the stigma of their origins is recalled and intermarriage between Latin Catholics and the older Christian group is still difficult (Koilparambil 1982, 5-6; 264). There are yet more recent groups of converts who are <b>" New Christians,"</b> and not even classed among the Latin Catholics. <b>The Knanaya, ever sensitive to the issue of their purity</b>, have developed a legend which extends the category of Northists to include all of these converts in a mass opposed to the stalwart Southists. This justifies the Southists' policy of endogamy as nothing less than sustaining down to the present the Patriarch of Antioch's ancient enjoinder to keep the faith and <b>racial purity</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And more on this racial purity, anti-mixing with 'low castes':
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bilateral division narrated as a difference in long-term policy is clearly milder than the various two-wife stories, which identify the Northists as <b>low-caste mixed-bloods</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->In other words, going by their own long-held myths of the how and why of N-S segregation, it was pure racism that was the cause of these two groups' division.
The casteism in India's Syrian christian community developed from their earlier myth where all the Southists descended from Armenian/Syrian Thomas of Cana and his Syrian wife vs Northists who were his half-Indian descendants.
Then eventually, this "we're racially pure you aren't" infight between the two groups developed into not mixing with 'low caste converts'.
And then, both Northists and Southists still don't generally intermarry with the later Latin Catholics because of the "stigma of their (Latin Catholics') origins" - as per the text above. And the even more recent converts, the "new christians", are in for a long wait before they will be considered acceptable.