Badagas
BADAGAS (literally "a Telugu man"), a tribe inhabiting the Nilgiri Hills, in India, by some authorities declared not to be an aboriginal or jungle race. They are probably Dravidian by descent, though they are in religion Hindus of the Saiva sect. They are supposed to have migrated to the Nilgiris from Mysore about A.D. 1600, after the breaking up of the kingdom of Vijayanagar. They are an agricultural people and far the most numerous and wealthy of the hill tribes. They pay a tribute in grain, etc., to the Todas. Their language is a corrupt form of Kanarese. At the census of 1901 they numbered 34,178.
See J. W. Breeks, An Account of the Primitive Tribes of the Nilgiris (1873); Nilgiri Manual, vol. i. pp. 218-228; Madras Journ. of Sci. and Lit. vol. viii. pp. 103-105; Madras Museum Bulletin, vol. ii., no. 1, pp. 1-7.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
