NO. 36. — 1888.] THE MOOES OF CEYLON. 



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there — say, five per cent, of the community, or about 5,000 

 out of the 92,500 — who bear the impress of an Arab or other 

 foreign descent. Even the small coterie of the Ceylon Moors, 

 who claim for themselves and their co-religionists an Arab 

 descent, candidly admit that on the mother's side the Ceylon 

 Moors are exclusively Tamil. All that remains to be proved, 

 therefore, is, that their early male ancestors were mainly 

 Tamils. For this purpose I have sketched the history of the 

 Ceylon Moors. I have shown the utter worthlessness of a 

 tradition among them that a great colony of Arabs of the 

 house of Hashim made settlements at Beruwala and other 

 parts of the Island, and have adduced reasons for accepting 

 as far more probable the tradition reported by Mr. Casie 

 Chetty, that the original ancestors of the Ceylon Moors 

 formed their first settlement at Kayal-pad(Janam, and that 

 many years afterwards a colony from that town — " the father- 

 land of the Chonagar " — migrated and settled at Beruwala. 

 I have further shown how similar the history of the Ceylon 

 Moors is to that of the Coast Moors ; how intimately con- 

 nected they were with each other till the Dutch began to 

 persecute them in Ceylon ; how the intercourse between the 

 mother-country in South India and Ceylon was arrested about 

 150 years ago ; and how the distinction arose thereafter 

 between the Ceylon Moors and the Coast Moors. By tracing 

 in this manner their history, that is, their descent, I arrive at 

 the conclusion that the early ancestors of the " Moors," 

 Ceylon and Coast, were mainly Tamils on the father's side, 

 as admittedly they are exclusively on the mother's side. 



Then, considering their social customs, I have pointed out 

 how closely they are a copy of Tamil institutions. I have 

 also touched upon their physical features and called attention 

 to the opinion of some of our leading doctors of medicine 

 and surgery, that the skull of a Moorman cannot be distin- 

 guished from that of a Tamil. In complete confirmation of 

 the inference drawn from these arguments is the evidence 

 afforded by language. The vernacular language of the Moors 

 is, as I have said, Tamil, even in purely Sinhalese districts. 



