Cholanaikkan
names 5objects 4
Spoken in the reserved forests of Nilambur, Malappuram district, Kerala.
tribal 5
See the Cholanaikkan sky on the chart →
The sky in Cholanaikkan
| Name | Object | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Koram, Udumbam | 'Star' as a word | The two words the Cholanaikkans gave for 'star'. The recorders add that they identify no individual stars and know no star patterns at all: shown the night sky in the Kozhikode planetarium, the party smiled and walked out. | tribal |
| ChootuPaayuka | Meteors and shooting stars | from Malayalam cūṭṭu, a torch of dried coconut leaves, and pāyuka, 'to run fast' They consider shooting stars to be gods and call them by this phrase. | tribal |
| Katui | Meteors and shooting stars | the recorders gloss it as resembling embers of a fire They take a shooting star to be embers of the fire sent by the gods. | tribal |
| Thinkam | The Moon | Close to Malayalam tiṅkaḷ, the moon and Monday. | tribal |
| Nyaram, Dinga | The Sun | Nyaram is close to Malayalam ñāyar, which is Sunday. They are glad when the sun is overhead, feeling protected by it, and bury their dead with the head to the west, the end of life as against its beginning. | tribal |
Sources
- M. N. Vahia, V. S. Ramachandran, Jayant Gangopadhyay and Justin Joseph, 'Astronomy of Cholanaikkan tribe of Kerala', arXiv:1702.04149 (2017), §9 'Their astronomy', p. 7 link