1922] MADRAS PEARL FISHERIES 25 



position to drive out the Portuguese and so obtain control of the 

 coveted pearl fishery. None of the Nayaks was ever strong enough 

 to do this and an armed neutrality usually existed, the Portu- 

 guese even granting certain privileges — practically tributes — to the 

 Nayak's Government in return for facilities given to pearl 

 merchants to travel without exactions to the scene of the fishery. 



The chief item in the concession made to the Nayak was the 

 grant of a number of free boats in each fishery. A grant engraved 

 upon copper purporting to be made by Tirumalai Nayakkan in 

 favour of the Mudaliyar Pillai Marakkayar, the head of the Moorish 

 community,* on founding or re-settling the town of Kayalpattanam 

 furnishes an interesting light on the details of this arrangement. 



It appears that a new port at the mouth of the Tambraparni, free 

 from the domination of the Portuguese, had become a necessity to 

 the Nayak through the silting up of the harbour of the city of 

 Kayal by sand brought down by the river. 



In recognition of the headman's enterprise in settling a large 

 number of his people at Kayalpattanam and thus conserving to the 

 Nayak a sea-port able to rival the Pinnakayal and the Tuticorin 

 of the Portuguese, several gifts were made to him the chief being 

 the grant often "free" divers' stones at the fishery. In return he 

 was with "seven large boats, with 96% stones, at 13% stones to 

 each boat, to fish the pearl banks for the use and benefit of the 

 said Government" ( of Madura). It is expressly said, ''he is to 



* Termed " Choliars" in this grant. In the tenth century the Chola dynasty over- 

 threw the neighbouring sister kingdoms of the Chera and Pandya, and reigned paramount 

 from the vicinity of Madras to Cape Comorin. 



It was doubtless subsequent to this period that the Tamil Muhammadans of South 

 India became known as the Choliya Muhammadans or more commonly Choliyar or 

 people of the Tamil country called Chola desam. To this day the Hindustani Muham- 

 madan speaks of his southern co-religionist as Choliya ; for, save as to religion the vast 

 majority of the Choliyar are Tamils in point of language, general appearance and social 

 customs— vide Ramanathan "The Ethnology of the Moors of Ceylon" in Journal 

 R.A.S. {Ceylon Branch), Volume XIII, page 245. 



In the seaports, particularly Kilakarai and Kayalpattanam, these vernacular-speak- 

 ing Muhammadans contain a marked strain of Arab blood in the higher class which 

 usually arrogates to itself the honorific suffix of Marakkayar. These men usually 

 know something of Arabic, or at least can write Tamil in Arabic characters. Occa- 

 sionally a purely Arab type of features and physique is met with among them, as in the 

 case of the late Ahmed Jalalludin Marakkayar, chank-fishery renter and shark-charmer, 

 of Kilakarai. The lower classes have the features and physique of the local coast people 

 of the place they inhabit. On the west coast, the Mappillas, of similar two-fold origin, 

 replace the Lebbais ot the south-east coast. 



