1836.] 



Translated from the Mackenzie Manuscripts, 



355- 



kali, Santana-kampan, Muttu-Karupan, Vira-bhadra, Sangili-karw 

 pan, Muni-esvaran, Ayyanar, Hariyavan, Samaiyan, Garu-na- 

 than, Pathinettam-padi Karupan, Mathur aim-ran ; and to these va- 

 rious deities they make offerings of liquor, flesh, and fruits ; pray- 

 ing to them according to the fashion of their own wishes. Then 

 whenever the pujaris (persons officiating) are seized with the (evil) 

 spirit, they utter replies announcing the (before not expressed) 

 thoughts of the worshipping votaries, and declaring sometimes a pros- 

 perous, sometimes an unsuccessful, result. Among- these Maravas 

 many persons habitually make use of palm-wine and country arrack, as 

 being the custom of the tribe ; but a few refrain. Some of the men 

 of the common classes among these Maravas are accustomed to 

 lengthen the ear-lobes as long as a finger, and to put in them ear- 

 rings ; but the chiefs themselves never do so. Some persons wear 

 ear-rings in the ordinary manner, (that is without lengthening the 

 ears). Of the female Maravas some lengthen the ear-lobes to the 

 extent of six or seven inches, and wear different kinds of jewels, dis- 

 tinctive of their class, or tribe. They wear very large garments, of 

 twenty-five or thirty cubits in length, folded in plaits, and fastened be- 

 hind. (Other natives, being Hindus, do not exceed at the utmost 

 twenty cubits ; fastened on the right side in front). Some of the men 

 use a small handkerchief worn on the head, others a white, or coloured, 

 handkerchief of six or seven cubits : they never wear turbans. The 

 rulers only, and that on special occasions, put on I urban s, robes, and 

 jewels, according to the customary fashions of the Hindus. 



The Marava chiefs, and also the heads of smaller districts were in 

 earlier days, either simply proprietors of the villages, and of the right 

 of the soil, or else they were merely guards of villages ; but in process 

 of time they became principal rulers, or chiefs of districts ; and though 

 possessing a long series of privileges and wealth as rulers, yet when 

 poets write their panegyrics, or sing their praises, it is customary to 

 style and entitle them only from the first small town, of which their 

 ancestors were the possesses, or the guards. Besides these persons 

 who are chiefs, of the other ordinary classes of the Maravas, not be- 

 ing subject, to their authority, some are possessers, or guards, of vil- 

 lages ; some are cultivators of the soil ; and they appropriate the pro- 

 ceeds in part to gifts to idol-temples, in other part to house-repairs ; 

 and they pay tribute, according to the proportion demanded from them, 

 by the Amildars, and other revenne officers. 



The manner of their marriages is the following : whether the two 

 parties be of the same or of two different villages, some of the man's 

 relatives go to the dwelling of the bride and there while the ehank (or 

 conch-shell) is being blown, they tie on the tali (emblem of marriage) ; 

 after which they bring her to the house of the bridegroom (who does 



