 He was a well-known tribal medical practitioner who had learned his craft from his father.A 1994 report by the UNESCO-affiliated International Committee on Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research described him as an encyclopaedia of medicinal plants.In 2002, when his clan consisted of 108 members, he claimed to be 118 years old and to have had 16 marriages involving women from his tribe and also the Muduga and Malayar tribes.