Account of the Rookies or Limctas. 13 



other, though all of them acknowledge, more or less, the 

 authority of three different rajahs, named Thandon, Mau- 

 kene, and Halcha, to whom the various tribes are attached, 

 but whose power over them is very limited, except in that 

 tribe with which the rajah lives, where he is absolute. The 

 rajahships are hereditary, and the rajahs, byway of distinc- 

 tion, wear a small slip of black cloth round their loins ; 

 and, as a further mark of superior rank, they have their 

 hair brought forward, and tied in a bunch, so as to ovei-- 

 shadc the forehead, while the rest of the Kookies have theijs 

 hanging loose over the shoulders. The females also of the 

 rajah's family wear an apron of black cloth with a red bor- 

 der, which falls down to the knee, — a colour and fashion 

 prohibited to the rest of the sex, black being the ro) al co- 

 lour. 



The rajahs receive a tribute in kind from the tribes to 

 support their dignity j and, in cases of general danger, they 

 can summon all the warriors to arms'"; but eacl^ tribe is 

 under the immediate command of its own particular chief, 

 •whose word is a law in peace and war, and who has the 

 power of life and death in his tribe. The chieftainship is 

 not hereditary like the rajahship, but elective, though in 

 general the nearest relation of the last chief succeeds'him, 

 if deemed by the tribe a proper person for the trust ; and 

 the rajah cannot remove a chief once elected^ should he dis- 

 approve of him. 



The Kookies are armed with bows and arrows, spears, 

 clubs, and daws, an instrument in common use among the 

 natives of this province, as a hand hatchet, and exactly re- 

 sembling the knife of thcNyars on the Malabar coast, which 

 is a most destructive weapon in close combat. "Jliey use 

 shields, made of the hide of the gyal, a species of cow pe- 

 culiar to their hills ; and the inside of their shields thev or- 

 nament with small pendulous plates of brass, which make 

 a tingling noise as the warriors toss about their arms either 

 in the fight or in the dance. They also wear round their 

 necks large strings of a particular kind of shell found m 

 their hills ; about their loins, and on their thighs imme- 

 diately above their knee, they tic large bunches of long 

 pat's hair, of a red colour; 'and on their arms they have 

 broad rings of ivory, in order to make them appear the 

 more terrific to their enemies. 



'i"he Kookies choose the steepest and most inaccessible 

 hills fo build their villages upon, which, I'rom beino- thus 

 situated, are called purults, or, in tiie Kookie lanciiagc, 

 hhooah. Every parah consists of a tribcj and has seldom 



fewer 



