26 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN [VOL. XVI, 



reside near the Government House of the Portuguese at the sea- 

 port of Mannar and near Mari Amman's chapel at Tuticorin.* He 

 shall have the superintendency of the pearl fishery and shall receive 

 60 chacrums per month and shall be favoured with ten stones to 

 dive for him at the said two places" (Mannar and Tuticorin). 



The 96% stones above mentioned represent the allowance 

 conceded by the Portuguese to the Nayak in return for the privileges 

 before named. Later we shall see that the question of the considera- 

 tion given in return for this privilege became the source of 

 continual disputes between the Dutch and the Nawab of the 

 Carnatic, the latter succeeding by conquest to the rights of the 

 Madura Nayaks in the early part of the eighteenth century. 



Other free stones f were at intervals during the sixteenth 

 century granted out of these 96% privilege stones by the Nayak to 

 various temples from religious motives, as in 1542 and 1546. 



Besides the Nayak of Madura, the Portuguese allowed to his 

 tributary, the Setupati of Ramnad, a further number of free 

 divers (60 stones) in each fishery in return for the help he gave in 

 contributing to the success of the fishery and in guarding and 

 providing pilots for the passage of the narrow strait called 

 Pamban pass, separating the mainland from the Island of Rames- 

 waram. 



This petty sovereign, who is the hereditary guardian of the 

 temple of Rameswaram and is the head of the Maravar caste, 

 was commonly known as the Theuver or Tuever in the days 

 of the Portuguese and the Dutch. While nominally under the 

 Madura monarch, the Setupati was virtually independent and 

 leaned more to the foreigners, for his lands being coastal and 

 insular, danger was greater from the sea than from the land. His 

 territory included the coast as far south as Kilakarai, the great 

 Moor diving centre at the present day, and for that reason his 

 assistance had to be courted and purchased by the European lords 

 of the pearl fisheries. 



* The Portuguese made Tuticorin their chief settlement on the Pescaria coast about 

 1580. Prior to that Pinnakayal was their headquarters. The fire Goa church at Tuti- 

 corin, dedicated to N. Senhora das Nieves (in Tamil Pani-maya-mata, dew replacing 

 snow) was founded in 1583. (Caldwell, History of Tinnevclly , pp. 75 to 78.) 



f By " stones " divers are to be understood, a diving stone being the indis- 

 pensable item in a diver's equipment. Each stone is however, usually shared by two 

 divers, so it is probable that the 96^ stones here referred to, represented an allowance 

 of I93 divers. 



