CHAPTER VII

PARIAHS

These are more numerous in the South, where they are also found less reduced in social status, and their usages resemble those of the Tamil Pariahs. They profess to have been once free and powerful. The flesh of cattle left dead by the roadside is their perquisite, and it is their partaking of this food that excites the abhorrence of ordinary Hindus, who venerate the cow. The Pariahs are employed chiefly in field labour. Zealous devil-worshippers and dancers, they make great pretensions to sorcery and magical powers.

About Trevandrum the people of this caste are rather strongly built and bold. They live in hamlets, and eat the putrid flesh of dead cattle, tigers, &c. As with the Sudras, nephews are the heirs. Their girls are married when very young — for mere form — by their cousins, but when grown up are selected by others, who “give cloth.” Instances occur both of polygamy and polyandry. The females are rather fair and licentious. They rub turmeric on their faces and bodies, and wear numerous heavy ornaments.

The Pariahs are employed by Sudras and Shanars for casting out devils and counteracting enchantments. A Christian convert of this caste, who had been a devil dancer, being asked concerning his former practices, replied that they were mere tricks to obtain money.

In North Travancore, their condition seems at the lowest, as they enter farther into the Malayalam country, and have had fewer opportunities of escape from their caste degradation and bitter servitude.