236 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON), [VOL. X. 



the final ar in mdrakar being the epicene particle in Tamil 

 denoting respect. 1 



In the Census Report of 1881 will be found a statement 

 showing the distribution of the population of Ceylon accord- 

 ing to religion and nationality. The total number of 

 Muhammadans is given as 197,775, under the following 

 " nationalities " : — 



Europeans ... ... 1 



Eurasians ... ... 4 



Sinhalese ... ... 71 



Tamils ... ... ... 715 



Malays ... ... ... 8,857 



Moormen... ... ... 184,536 



Others ... ... ... 3,591 



Those who are classed as " others " include Afghans, 130 ; 

 Arabs, 450 ; Dekkanese, 3 ; Hindustani, 164 ; Javanese, 3 ; 

 Pathani, 1,210 ; Tulukkar (Turks), 128, &c. We have fairly 

 clear ideas of the nationality of these Muhammadans : but 

 what is the nationality of the " Moormen " ? 



The Registrar-General and other Commissioners appointed 

 for the taking of the Census are not primarily responsible for 

 the term " Moor " representing a nationality in Ceylon. 

 As I have said, our Portuguese conquerors applied the term 

 to this community, not because that was the name it went by 

 in its own circle or among its neighbours, but because, like 

 the Moors of North Africa, its religion was Muhammadan. 

 The political successors of the Portuguese — I mean the 

 Dutch— took over the word and used it in a loose way to 

 denote a class of people whose lingual and social characteristics 

 they did not comprehend for several decades, either absolutely 

 or relatively to the races which inhabit Ceylon and India. 

 In the closing years of their rule, however, they were 



1 I do not see my way to deriving the word from the Arabic markdb, 

 " a ship," because the Tamil personal noun formed from it would be markdb- 

 kdran or markdb-dl, not marikar. In Sinhalese, a Moor is commonly 

 known as marakkaldha, the tandal or head of a boat (cf . gan-vdhd, " chief 

 of a village "), and marakkaldha cannot be evolved from markab-dhd, but is 

 descended almost letter for letter from the Tamil word marakkalam, " a 

 wooden vessel." 



