TJie Ethnology of India. 137 



country by the classes who considered them too low for this decent 

 practice. All the Teer and Shanar people are said to be by caste 

 or profession palm-growers or toddy-drawers, in allusion to the prin- 

 cipal product of their native regions. ' Teer' it seems means l Island' 

 and the Teermen are generally understood to be Islanders or immi- 

 grants by sea. Their relationship to the Maldivians is spoken of, 

 but that is a petty group, and the only people to whom it is clear 

 that they are related are the Singhalese. I am not acquainted with 

 Singhalese ethnology, but the Singhalese whom I have seen seemed, 

 I think, to be a fine-featured straight-haired people with no dash of 

 the Indian Aborigines and like the Teers, only somewhat darker and 

 somewhat different in dress, &c. Caldwell speaks of the Teers as 

 being a reflex of the previous Hindoo emigration to Ceylon. Yet if 

 all the accounts be correct, it is difficult to suppose all the congeners 

 of the Teers to have come from Ceylon. Not only are the Teers 

 very numerous in Malabar, where they form a great proportion of the 

 population, but all the Shanars farther south are stated to be of the 

 same race, as are the Billiaru (said to mean ' Bow men'), the lower 

 race in Canara, and a considerable number of people related to the 

 latter who are found in Mysore, and there called Halaya Paika or old 

 Paiks. Some of these people are, however, I believe much darker and 

 less good looking than the proper Teers. The latter are also said to 

 have contributed to form the Moplahs. If so large a population has 

 immigrated, it must have been a long time ago. I said I think that 

 there can be little doubt of their relationship to the Singhalese. It 

 would seem from the published accounts, that the Singhalese are not 

 Diavidian in language and manners, but derive the main portions of 

 their language and religion, and perhaps of their civilisation, from' 

 Bengal and Magadha. That they received their present Buddhism 

 from Magadha, and much of their language from a Sanscritic source, 

 there can, I believe, be no doubt. But here also Western elements 

 may be mixed with the other, and very careful inquiry is necessary. 



It would be curious if it proved that, as it were in the three 

 extremities of India, in Cashmere in the north protected by moun- 

 tains, Bengal in the east protected by the marshes of the Ganges 

 and Berhampootra, and parts of Ceylon and Malabar on the south 

 protected by distance and water, there remain three remnants of the 



