CiiAP. IV.] THE RODIYAS AND OTHER OUTCASTS. 191 



As if to demonstrate tliat witliiii the lowest depths of 

 degradation tliere may exist a lower still, there are two 

 races of outcasts in Ceylon, who are abliorred and 

 avoided even by the Eodiyas. These are the Ambette- 

 yos, or barbers, and the Hanomoreyos, or betel-box 

 makers, of Oovah, who are looked on as so vile that no 

 human being would touch rice that had been cooked in 

 their liouses ; and the Eodiyas, on the occasion of festi- 

 vals, tie up tlieir dogs to prevent them prowling in 

 search of food to the dwellings of these wretclies. 



In contemplating the position and treatment of the 

 Eodiyas of Ceylon, one is struck with its similarity to 

 that of the Cagots and Caqueux, " the Pariahs of the 

 West," who, from time immemorial, have been held in 

 abhorrence in the valleys of the Pyrenees, and the 

 plains of Bretagne, Poitou, and Guienne. The origin 

 of either race is alike obscure, and it remains uncertain 

 whether the Cagots were extruded from human spn- 

 pathy and association as the descendants of Gothic or 

 Moorish oppressors ; or whether they w^ere shunned from 

 rehgious hatred, as the offspring of Arians, Jews, or 

 Mahometans. Por more than a thousand years, there 

 are records of their social proscription, with every ac- 

 companiment of infamy and abhorrence. Their persons 

 were believed to be contaminating, and their smell an 

 abomination. Like the Eodiyas, they were compelled to 

 stand aside on the highway to allow travellers to pass ; 

 they were pimished for coming between the wind and a 

 free citizen ; they durst not draw water from a public 

 fountain, or touch the parapet of a bridge with their un- 

 covered hand. To protect the earth from the pollution of 

 their feet, they were forced to wear shoes, and to enable 

 all comers to avoid them, the law oixlered them to cany 

 a red mark {pied d'oye) upon then* shoulders. They 

 were forbidden to touch an article of food in the market- 

 place before it had been sold and deUvered to them. 

 Their dwellings were huts and hovels in spots avoided by 

 the rest of mankind ; and though permitted to embrace 



