Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

over the nearby areas and brought to Calicut, and it is possible that it is these
opportunities that facilitated the internal migration of the Mappilas.
It is obvious that the existing land routes and river route assisted this process. The
growth of bazaars is a process linked with this expansion. We have already seen the
importance of angadis and kadavus in the process of trade. The cattle market at Chelari
feeds the agricultural population, as it supplies the agriculturist with the necessary
instrument of production, whereas the market at Tirurangadi dealt with agricultural
products, which could be sold internally as well as procured, transported via land and the
river and brought to the major marts. The chantha at Tirurangadi, in the popular memory
was the largest market in the entire area, and attracted people from all the surrounding
regions and even from the faraway places. Old people still remember that the din created
from the market could be heard even at a distance. The market also brought merchants,
middlemen, and their workers and made them settle there, and such settled streets can
even now be found there. Thus the spread of commercial production and trade resulted in
the growth of the market center called Tirurangadi, which had acquired importance by the
beginning of the British rule.
This spread of commercial cultivation also meant the conversion of the modan lands into
parambas into lands growing coconut, areca, pepper, ginger and other crops, rather than
subsistence crops including jack, mango, and root crops. This conversion might have
gone well into the British period. This also resulted in the growth of several minor market
centers, such as Velimukku, Kadappadi, Kottathangadi, Velliampuram, Parambilpeetika,
Chenakkalangadi and so on. These market centers facilitated the further migration of the
Muslims into the interior as traders and cultivators. This is indicated by the memories of
the old people that some of the major families from kodinji region, such as Palakkad and
Pattassery were migrants from Parappanangadi and were not native to kodinji. They also