Yerukalas before Colonial India
Yerukalas are indigenous people of India. The earliest reference of Yerukalas can be found is in Mahabharata, the great Indian epic. People, including Yerukalas, beleive that Yekalavya, the great archer from Mahabharata times, belongs to Yerukala society. Yekalavya achieves a skill level parallel to the great Arjuna despite Drona's rejection of him. As he was a member of a lower community, he was denied to study in the gurukul of Dronacharya.
Many historians have stated that they found references on some pillars stating that the Kakatiyas were originated from the nomadic community called Erukala.
The archival sources establish that the Yerukala community to have been an honourable and useful part of the society in the past. However, through a careful analysis of its present oral culture and folkfore, the members of this community have lost memory of that history, and share the widespread beleif of the community's earlier, dangerous criminality.
Korava - South Indian indigenous community
Yerukala call themselves as Kurru. Yerukala is the name Korava community got to be called in the Telugu speaking areas of the erstwhile Madras presidency. The same set of people are called with different names in different parts of South India. They are called as Kuruvan or Kuruvar in Tamilnadu, Korama or Koracha in Karnataka, Kaikadi in Maharashtra, Siddanar in Kerala and Kattu Naicker in Pondicherry. In essence, all these communities form a great big community from south india called Korava. The gothras among all these communities is the same, i.e Kavadi, Sathupadi, Maanupadi and Mendraguthi.
Prior to the British colonial rule, all these communities were part of that great big community since there were no real boundaries in India at that time. People from these communities used to roam around freely for their trading purposes. The splitting of this great community into numerous small communities is attributed to the Indian Caste System and the subsequenct maximum utlization of Indian Caste System evils by the British Divide and Rule Policy. The Indian Independence and the subsequent formation of states based on languages like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam has split this community permanently. The people from this community in each state got their own identity and lost the relations with their brethren in other states.