Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 101

THE PULIAHS AND CHUCKLERS
6]
themselves what may be called nests in the brandies of
the thickest-foliaged trees, where they perch like birds of
prey for the greater part of the twenty-four hours. They
are not even allowed to walk peaceably along the high-
roads.
If they see any one coming towards them, they
are bound to utter a certain cry and to go a long way
hundred paces is the
round to avoid passing him.
very nearest they may approach any one of a different
caste.
If a Nair, who always carries arms, meets one of
these unhappy people on the road, he is entitled to stab
A
him on the spot 1 The Puliahs live an absolutely savage
and have no communication whatever with the rest
.
life,
of the world.
The Chucklers, or cobblers, are also considered inferior
to the Pariahs all over the Peninsula, and, as a matter of
fact, they show that they are of a lower grade by their
more debased ideas, their greater ignorance and brutality.
They are also much more addicted to drunkenness and
debauchery. Their orgies take place principally in the
evening, and their villages resound, far into the night,
with the yells and quarrels which result from their intoxica-
tion.
Nothing will persuade them to work as long as they
have anything to drink they only return to their labour
when they have absolutely no further means of satisfying
their ruling passion.
Thus they spend their time in alter-
;
nate bouts of work and drunkenness. The women of this
wretched class do not allow their husbands to outshine
them in any vice, and are quite as much addicted to drunken-
ness as the men.
Their modesty and general behaviour
may therefore be easily imagined. The very Pariahs refuse
to have anything to do with the Chucklers, and do not
admit them to any of their feasts.
There is one class amongst the Pariahs which rules all
the rest of the caste. These are the Valluvas 2 who are
They keep
called the Brahmins of the Pariahs in mockery.
themselves quite distinct from the others, and only inter-
marry in their own class. They consider themselves as
,
1
No native is nowadays allowed to carry arms without a licence.
But even now the Puliahs are forbidden to approach a person of higher
They always stand at a distance of 20 to 30 yards. Ed.
caste.
2
These are sometimes physicians and astrologers.
Ed.