1847.] 



Neilgherry Hills, 8^c. 



91 



ever I have asked one of the race what the cairns were, I have been 

 invariably informed in reply they were the cemeteries of their an- 

 cestors. The Thautawar above alluded to also acquainted me that 

 his people held the cairns in great veneration, though they never ap- 

 proach them, because none but the direct descendant of a Thautawar 

 buried in a cairn, ought to approach it, and they could not now ascertain 

 which were the proper tombs of their direct ancestors. He said also 

 that a race called the Punja Pandaver were originally here, and the 

 Thautawars came after them, and from the North-West, that his peo- 

 ple had been here from very early times, and had no connection with 

 the Hindus whatever. 



There is a tradition amongst these people to the effect that the first 

 God was called Oonu who came out of the earth like mist, which seems 

 to refer to the Deluge and to Noah or Nu as he is called in Eastern 

 countries. 



Had this statement about the Punja Pandava emanated from a Hin- 

 doo I should have considered it nothing more than a version of the 

 story of the five Pandoos prevalent throughout India, but coming as it 

 does from a Thautawar I am disposed to look for some other meaning 

 in it, and dismissing the word Punja as an innovation probably from 

 the Hindoos on the Hills, regard it as a tradition that the Neilgherries 

 were once under the Pandyans of the South of India whose empire at 

 one time was very extensive. I am confirmed in this opinion by the 

 fact that Pandava was the name of the kingdom of the Pandyans, and 

 by what I have elicited from the Burghers, many of whom state that 

 " a race called the Pandaver" (without the prefix Punja) was once set- 

 tled here. 



From the costumes on statues and monumental effigies we are en- 

 abled to form very accurate conceptions of the habiliments and orna- 

 ments of a former people ; and this method of perpetuating a custom 

 contributes greatly to enable a posterity to identify the tombs of its 

 forefathers. 



Some female figures in pottery disinterred by me from a cairn on 

 a peak of the Khoondas have considerably aided towards establishing 

 the fact of the cairns having belonged to the ancient Thautawars. 



In their houses the Thautawar women wear no covering save what 

 nature has bestowed, unless occasionally a strip of cloth wound round 

 the middle; they however leave their ornaments on, consisting of large 

 earrings, a necklace with an ornament depending from it in front, large 

 bangles on the arms between the shoulder and the elbow, and a chain 



