The Ethnology of India. 134 
Ramooses of the southern parts of the»-Bombay territory, the better 
Beders of the centre of the Peninsula, and the Kallars and Marawars 
of the south. All are of a sturdy, semi-military, predatory character. 
They have generally, in times of trouble, acquired considerable posi- 
tion, and their chiefs have risen to be Polygars. Evidently they are 
superior to the simpler aborigines. The Ramooses are described as 
ill-favoured, but not altogether different in appearance from the ordinary 
population. They have many customs which seem to indicate some 
connection with the northern democratic tribes (see full particulars 
in the Madras Literary Journal), and have the Rajpoot-like traditions 
of the Sacred Horse, Ge. It is in such tribes that I think an infusion 
of Yavana blood may well be suspected. 
The Pallers are probably related to the Puliars of the Pulney hills, 
but as settled inhabitants they seem to be decent cultivators of low 
degree. They are very numerous, and seem chiefly to cultivate kitchen 
gardens and small farms. They bury their dead, and have Poojarees 
of their own caste, eat animal food when they can get it, and drink 
freely. Like most non-Arian tribes, they appear to practice polygamy 
when they can afford it. 
The Pariahs are well known, their name having become proverbial. 
They also seem to be numerous, and somewhat lower in degree than 
the Pallers, being under native rule a sort of serfs, and living in serf 
quarters attached to the Vellaller villages. I think that traces of the 
thick lip and something of the prognathous jaws ef their ancestors 
may sometimes be traced in those whom we see in service. Yet they 
are certainly very intelligent good servants. It appears that they are 
sometimes educated, and that there have even been Pariah authors. 
Perhaps their masters sometimes found them intelligent, and had them 
educated. . 
A strong mark that even yet Hindu ideas and manners have not 
fully taken hold of the extreme south, is this that there, as it appears, 
even some pretty decent and respectable castes bury, instead of burning 
their dead. 
The division into right hand and left hand castes, which prevails all 
over Southern India is very extraordinary and unexplained. They 
are sometimes violent factions, and yet, for anything that we are told, 
there is as little occasion for the feeling as for the feud between the 
