MADRAS JOtrilNAL 



OF 



LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 



No. \.— October, 1833. 



1. — Extract from the General Memoir of the Survey of Travan- 

 core, by Lieutenant P. E. Conner, being a description of the 

 Hill Tribes in that country » ^ 



(Read at a Meeting of the Madras Literary Society and Auxiliary of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society held on Thursday the 23d of May 1833.) 



A FEW wild but inoffensive Mountaineers share amongst them 

 the v/hole of the hilly parts. It is difficult to fix their total,* but 

 they are not numerous. Influenced by all the prejudices of Caste, 

 they are divided into several distinct tribes, who have little inter- 

 course with each other. But their character is similar, or only 

 distinguished by minute shades. It partakes of the rude wildness of 

 their Hills, but is in no instance ferocious. Though living in clans^ 

 they have little of that union and attachment that belongs to such 

 an association. Each society has its little Chief, most of them 

 owe general allegiance to the Rajah's of Pundalum and Puniattu, 

 caprice leads them to occasionally transfer their fealty, called 

 Mopen, to the South Kuneecar, whose authority, rather domestic 

 than despotic, is willingly submitted to. Their mode of life too, 

 is every where the same, subsistence being chiefly derived from the 

 spontaneous produce of the wilderness through which they roam. 

 The spoils of the ehase (of which they often rob the Chennai) 

 yields a precarious addition, and the collection of the Hill products 

 affords the means of obtaining the few coarse luxuries suitable to 

 their taste. Wicker work (made from Bamboos) in which they are 

 very ingenious, is the only art they practice. They are not exempt 

 from the Fever common to the Hills, but are in general hardy, and 



* It would appear certainly greater than that given in the Statistic Table, 

 so scattered we shall not be surprised at any incorrectness in the enume- 

 ration. 



