60 OKHAMANDAL MARINE ZOOLOGY— PART II 



droning a single note as it cuts its way laboriously through the hard substance of the 

 shell. 



Tradition has it that Nakkirar, the chank-cutter President of the Sangam, was a 

 Parawa by caste. It would be most appropriate if this be correct as we have already 

 seen that at the beginning of the Christian era chank-fishing and chank-cutting were 

 among the important trades carried on in Korkai, the chief settlement of the Parawas 

 in early days. 



No Parawas to-day are engaged in chank-cutting although they still largely 

 monopolise the shore industries of Tinnevelly where they continue as from time imme- 

 morial to provide the contingent of divers required for the exploitation of both the 

 pearl- and the chank-fisheries of the Gulf of Mannar. 



It is noteworthy that though their women do not now wear chank-bangles their 

 children from four months to about two years old are often given roughly-made chank- 

 bracelets to wear in the belief that such will protect them against the baleful influence 

 of the evil eye, from vomiting and from a wasting disease called chedi which appears 

 to be rickets and reputed to be caused by the touch or near approach of a woman during 

 her menses ! This custom has now been abandoned or is perfunctorily performed 

 by some of the better class Parawas, but the great majority, including naturally the 

 whole of the poorer and more ignorant sections of the community, continue to 

 adhere strongly to the custom. The bangles are roughly fashioned and with the crudest 

 of ornamentation ; they are made by Muhammadans at Kilakarai, their chief settlement 

 on the coast of the Gulf of Mannar. 



Apart from this evidence we have nothing of importance till we come to the sixth 

 century when the travelled monk, Cosmas Indico-Pleustes, after mentioning the island 

 of Ceylon, proceeds to say " and then again on the continent and further back is Marallo 

 which exports conch shells {koxKiovs:)." Sir J. Emerson Tennent in his " Sketches 

 of the Natural History of Ceylon " (London, 1861) misses the significance of the 

 expression " on the continent " and identifies Marallo with Mantotte near Mannar on 

 the north-west coast of Ceylon, where chanks are collected in the neighbourhood in 

 large quantities even at the present day. Yille ^ with closer adherence to the old text 

 would place this ancient chank-fishery on the Indian coast {i.e., on the continent opposite 

 Ceylon), and he suggests that Marallo is a corrupted form or misrendering of Mara war, 

 the name of the chief caste living in the coastal district of Ramnad, now the location 

 of one of the most productive and accessible present day chank-fisheries. The name 

 of the local people not infrequently was applied by old travellers to the chief town in 

 their territory and so, very reasonably, we may identify Marall'o generally with the 

 Maravan coast and particularly with either the town of Rameswaram or of Pamban 

 situated at the western extremity of Adam's Bridge and directly opposite to Mantotte 

 and Mannar at the western extremity. 



1 Cathay and the Way Thither, Vol. I, p. clxxviii, London, 1866. 



