The Mannan people are one of the Scheduled Tribes

Adivasi

Adivasi is an umbrella term for a heterogeneous set of ethnic and tribal groups claimed to be the aboriginal population of India. They comprise a substantial indigenous minority of the population of India...

 who live in Idukki District

Idukki district

Idukki district is one among the 14 districts of Kerala state, India. The district headquarters is located at in Painavu.It is the second least populous district in Kerala, after Wayanad .-Etymology:...

 in Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The Mannan have a hereditary king who leads them. They are said to be descendants of Pandyan King and mother tongue is Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

.

The Kerala have long lived in the dense forest areas, but more recently have moved to working small farms. They have a literacy rate far below the average in India.

Philipose Vaidyar, a people group writer have written about Mannan at www.focusonpeople.org