216 
ON THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS 
to force the Mudalis and Vellalas to pay homage to them loj 
bowing their heads respectfully to them. But these two 
classes refusing to do it, the Kurumbas in revenge ill-treated 
and oppressed them in all sorts of ways. They constructed 
for this purpose very low entrances at the various places 
where the Mudalis and Vellalas had to pass through gates, 
and they thought that they would thus compel these men to 
lower their heads when going through these entrances, and 
extract from them in this manner a certain amount of invo- 
luntary homage. But the MudaKs and Vellalas of Nerumpur 
were quite equal to the occasion, and instead of bowing their 
heads, they scrambled through with their legs foremost, so 
that they added injury to insult ; and the Kurumbas became 
only more exacting. At last the Vellalas could stand this 
treatment no longer and determined to get rid of their 
oppressors. For this purpose they had recourse to a leading 
barber, whom they induced by liberal promises of gifts of 
land to devise a scheme to help them, and this man persuaded 
his fellow-barbers to kill the Kui'umbas when an opportunity 
occurred. He founded his plot on the above-mentioned 
custom, according to which all the Kurumbas who attend a 
funeral shave their heads. About this time a prominent 
personage among the Kurumbas died, and the Mudalis 
and Vellalas availed themselves of this opportunity to instruct 
the head barber to issue orders to his caste-people to kill the 
Kurumbas while they were being shaved. As the shaving 
was performed pretty simultaneously, each bai-ber cut the 
throat of his Kurumba customer, and all the Kurumbas of 
Nerumpur were thus massacred. As soon as the tidings of 
the mui'der of their husbands reached the Kiu'imiba women, 
they determined not to survive them, and burnt themselves 
"wdth the corpses of their consorts. The dying widows uttered 
the curse that Nerumpur should never again produce enough 
grain to buy salt, evea if three crops of grain were reaped 
every year. The fortification and irrigation works of the 
Kurumbas have fallen into ruins since then, and only the 
