234 
ON THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS 
From reliable information I have gathered, the Kurumha 
origin of the Kallas appears very probable. The ancestors 
of the Kallas were according to tradition driven from their 
home in consequence of a famine and migrated from a place 
near Tripati in Tondamandalam to the south. They even- 
tually settled in the village Ambil on the bank of the Kole- 
roon (in Tamil Kolladam), opposite and not far distant from 
Tanjore, the river being between both places. The ruler of 
Tanjore enlisted them in his service as watch-men or Kavar- 
kar. Eventually, they left Ambilnadu, penetrated still 
further to the south and founded Amhnkocil, which they 
named after the home they had left not long before. They 
settled in nine villages, and their descendants are called 
Onb'adukuppattdr, after onhadu nine and kuppam village. They 
are regarded as the nine representative clans of the Kallas. 
The reigning family of the Tondaman belongs to them, and the 
Otibadukuppattdr are as a sign of this connection invited to 
all the marriages, festivals and other solemnities which take 
place at Court. Ambilnadu formed originally one of the 
12 independent small communities, known as Tannaram 
Nadu, i.e., a district which has its own kings, forming thus a 
sort of confederation, like that which prevailed among the 
Nelson seems to intimate when he says in his Manual (II, p. 49) "that the 
•word Kalian is common to the Kanarese, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil 
tongues . . (and) that the Kalians were the last great aboriginal tribe of the 
south which successfully opposed the advancing tide of Hinduism."' 
148 ^ great part of the information about the Kallas I obtained from the 
present Dewan Eegent of PudukOta, the Honorable A. S^shiah Sastriyar, 
CLE. 
See also Mr. Nelson's Manual, II, p. 44 : " According to Ward's Survey 
Account the Kalians belong to two main diN-isions, that of the Jul mdu or 
eastern countrj', and that of the Mel nddu or western country. The Kll 
Nadu comprises the Nadus of Melur, a village about sixteen miles east of 
Madura, Vellalur and Sirungudi : and its inhabitants, whose agromon is 
usually Ambalakaran, vare the descendants of a clan which immigrated into 
the countrj' in the following cu-cumstanccs. Some Kalians belonging to the 
Vella (Vala ?) Nadu near Kanehipunim (Conjeveram) came down south with 
a number of dogs on a grand hunting expedition, armed with their peculiar 
weapons, pikes, bludgeons and VaUari Tliadis or bomorangs. Somehow in 
the neighbourhood of Molur. whilst they were engaged in their sport, they 
