CAPITULO III CICLO DE INGRESOS
3.1. Concepto
9 5
3*8 Telungu Chettiar family, Village B.
9 6
Table 3 •'I Male and Female Numbers, Sample Villages
Male Female
Village A 8^9 772
Village B 776 86^
Total 1621
l6kO
Table 3-2 Household Size by Age of Head of Household
Village A
Household Age of Head of Household
Number 0 -3 2 33-.A2 A3-52 53-62
1 -2 8 5 8 27
3-4 27 18 17 15
5-6 51 ^3 23 13
7-8 2k 23 12
■£9 0 5 5 9
Total 70 95 77 76
Average 5 .6 8 5*51 ^ .6 7
Standard Deviation l.kk 1 .8 8 2 .1 2 3*3^
Village B
Household Age of Head of Household
Number 0 -3 2 55-42 ^3 -5 2 53-62
1-2 8 6 k 21
3_A 35 22 12 17
5-6 18 44 29 17
7-8 2 22 2k 11
^ 9 0 10 8 7
Total 63 10A 77 73
Average *f.0 0 5-73 6 .0 8 ^.33
Standard Deviation 1 .2 8 2 .1 6 1.95 2 4 6
9 8
Table 3*3 Caste Numbers Village A Castes
Households Population Kulla Theva Village A site
106) ^ n
Kurumba Gounda 1oii- 353
Vellan 16 89
9 9
Table 3.4 Occupations (Not Exclusive)
Category
Agriculturist and Coolie
Agriculturist, Shepherd and Coolie
52
4. Agriculture Related Occupations Cotton/Chilli Merchant
* Caste occupation
(Continued)
1 0 0
Table 3.4 (cont)
6. Other Businesses and Services Slaughterer
Tailor Shopkeeper Hotel worker
Cycle repairing and Radio Operator Radio Operator
Timber Merchant Builder
Cement Pot Maker Cloth Merchant
Contractor for Public Works Department Stone cutting Merchant
Thatcher Mi l k Seller
7. Professional Occupations Government
Water-supply Operator, Accountant, Panchayat School Cook, Co-op Shop Keeper, etc.
Clerk, Taleyari, Nattarme, Midwife, Sanitary Inspector,
1
1 0 1
Table 3-5 Occupational Categories
Occupational Category (Exclusive) Village A Village B M F Total M F Total
0G1
Farmers 15^ 97 231 126 92 218
0C2
Farming Labourers 5^ 21 75 38 52 90
0C3
Labourers 269 2?2 5^1 239 313 552
OCA
Non-Agricultural Occupations 56 16 72 76 17 93
0C5
Students 158 78 236 181 135 316
0C6
Housedwellers 158 288 kk6 116 255 571
1 0 2
Table 3,6 Occupational Categories for Caste Groups
(For numerically Dominant and other combined castes, male and
female. Occupation shown as a percentage of Total Caste Population)
M O CO o O > S ! o f o W
Table3.7PopulationIndices,1891-1978
1 0 4
Table 3*8 Household Numbers 1926-78, calculated from family lineage information
Year Village A Village
1926 - 136
19V7 229
-1950 229 2^9
1955 2^1 260
1960 2^2 276
1965 276 308
1970 308 311
1975 322 320
1978 318 317
Table3.9 CasteProportions*,1926-78
Table 3*10 Distribution of Migration Variables
Variable Categories Village A Village B
Out In Out In
Occupation Farmer 39 9 38 3
Origin Coolie 64 15 74 15
Student 3 0 18 0
Businessman 7 4 3 6
Wage Earner 4 5 3 5
Caste Businessman 2 4 1if 0
No Occupation 23 7 12 1
Occupation Farmer 19 10 16 6
Destination Coolie 98 19 38 14
Student 1 0 1 0
Businessman 14 5 30 7
Wage Earner 25 4 39 5
Caste Businessman 2 if 11 4
No Occupation 14 7 8 1
Mode of No connection 86 6 88 15
Migration Wife's place of residence 34 28 57 17 General Family Connection 20 5 27 3
Birth Place 3 6 3 2
Location of Periyar Region (dry) 37 19 46 23 Destination/ Periyar Region (wet) 48 19 55 8
Origin Elsewhere Tamilnadu 37 6 53 4
Other State 12 0 18 1
Size of Village 68 33 107 25
Destination/ Town 65 10 58 10
Origin
Table3.11CrosstabulationofCountand MigratingGroupVariables,usingCM (SignificantDifferencesshown;"N" indicatesNotSignificantat95%)
Chapter 4
Agriculture; Resources, Production, and Production Characteristics
4.1 Introduction
This chapter will examine the physical variables which determine the nature of agriculture in the sample villages.
The soatial and temporal availability of land, water and other resources for production are examined, as is the nature of technology for agricultural production. The changing relationship between physical resources and agricultural technology is shown to determine the changing nature of three main indicators of production and production methods:
land use types, cropping patterns and labour demand.
The villages are treated as isolated units of agricultural production, environmental and technological changes and
constraints acting at the village level. Although this method of analysis does not allow the complete picture of intenelationships between variables within the agricultural sector, to be fully explained, it provides the framework within which sub-village variables, such as demographic structure, political organisation, land ownership, and relations of production may be analysed (Chapters 6 to 8).
For the purposes of this chapter, therefore, a definition of the agricultural village is necessary. The agricultural
village may be defined as the set of physical objects
(resources and technology) for agricultural production, which are operated by resident members of the village. Thus the
extent of the village is ultimately determined by the agricultural activities of resident population rather than being permanently
defined by spatial factors alone. It is clear from this definition that the content and extent of village resources must continually change•
4.2 Resources
4.2.1 Land
Land, the use of which is the basis of the village economy, has three attributes; soil fertility, slope, and distance from the village, which have an important effect on the agricultural system, and which act largely as independent variables on
agricultural production, but which are to a large extent interdependent. A fourth attribute, the nature of the
parent rock, is important in relation to potential accessibility to groundwater, and will be discussed in Section 4.4.2*
Soil fertility is largely determined by the soil's suitability for different types of cultivation in relation
to its content of essential elements, pH value and soil structure.
Because of the complexity of factors determining soil fertility values it was impossible to make a survey on soil fertility.1
However a useful indication of the spatial variation within the village of soil fertility can be gained from the 1915
Settlement classification of soil types (See Figs 4.1 and 4.2), which based revenue tarams or rates, on the differential
productivity in irrigated and dry land.
The soils of the sample villages are similar, being based on parent weathered gneiss or colluvium. They are generally loamy and, occasionally, sandy soils suitable for the production 1 A systematic sample survey of the soil content of the essential
elements of Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorous of village soils, and their suitability for production of major crops, carried out by the author with the aid of the Tamilnadu Soil Survey Department was found to yield very indeterminate results.
millets, pulses, paddy, and cash crops such as cotton, chillis and groundnuts. Within the villages the spatial variation in soil fertility tends to some extent to be related to distance from the village and thus slope (Fig 4.3 shows aerial views of the sample villages, illustrating the relationship between slope and distance from the village site). This pattern is especially true for Village B (Fig 4.2) where the best loamy soil is found around the village site, and progressively sandy, and inferior soils away from it on the base slopes of surrounding inselbergs. Although this pattern may not be strictly applied to Village A, where better loamy soils are found to the west of the village site, and the soils to the east, which are irrigated by canal, are generally inferior, within the dryland area', soil fertility is generally related to slope and distance from the village site. The poorer soils fertility of what is canal irrigated land does not greatly affect its productivity*
Given that the villages were both sited at locations of maximum advantage for irrigated agriculture, in the case of Village A next to the river which -provided canal irrigation, and in that of Village B at the optimum point for groundwater accessibility, the factors of soil fertility, slope and distance from the village, are interrelated in the context of the
development of the village from its initial agricultural base, which has taken place from the more fertile land around the village site towards less fertile, steeper and more distant land.
4.2.2 Water
Rainfall, shovrn in average weekly totals for a location
*1 fer (X. 1‘ imv tbsd urc. c.rr>p pjzjT ■Hag, 9a