Nair

Nair (നായര്‍) most commonly spelt is the name of a Hindu upper caste from the southern Indian state of Kerala. The Nairs were a martial nobility and figured prominently in the history of Kerala. Before the British conquest in 1792, the Kerala region contained small, feudal kingdoms, in each of which the royal and noble lineages, the militia, and most land managers were drawn from the Nayars and related castes.[ were prominent in politics, government service, medicine, education, and law. Nairs were traditionally matrilineal. Their family unit, the members of which owned property jointly, included brothers and sisters, the latter's children, and their daughters' children. The oldest man was legal head of the group. Rules of marriage and residence varied somewhat between kingdoms. The Nairs were famous for their martial history, including their involvement in Kalaripayattu and the role of Nair warlords in the Mamankam ritual. The Nairs were classed as a martial raceby the British, but were de-listed after rebelling against them under Velu Thampi Dalawa, and thereafter were recruited in low numbers into the British Indian Army. Only Nairs were recruited into the Thiruvithamkoor Nayar Pattalam (Travancore State Army), until 1935 when non-Nairs started to get admitted. This State Force (known also as the Nair Brigade) was merged into the Indian Army after independence and became the 9th Battalion Madras Regiment, the oldest Battalion in the Indian Army. It is believed that the Kolathiri and Travancore kingdoms had Nair origins. The Samoothiri (Zamorin) Raja was a Samanthan Nair[ and the Arakkal kingdom of Kannur, which was the only Muslim kingdom in the Kerala region, also had Nair origins[. Nair feudal families such as the Ettuveetil Pillamar were extremely influential in the past and often had greater influence than the Raja. The word Nair lends itself to two etymological interpretations. The first interpretation is that the word Nair is derived from the Sanskrit word Nayaka meaning leader. The Sanskrit word Nayaka appears in various forms in southern India (Nayakan/Naicker in Tamil Nadu, Nayak in Karnataka and Maharashtra, and Nayudu in Andhra Pradesh) and the word Nair has been suggested to be the corruption of Nayak in Malayalam. The second interpretation is that the word Nair is a corrupted form of the word Nāga or Nagar- meaning serpent men because Nairs were descendants of Nagavanshi Kshatriya Clans who practiced snake worship family name Nair or Nayar also occur in Punjab, belonging to a Khatri Jat community.