It is noted by Mr. Garstin *[1] that "in his time (1878) the Malaiālis of the South Arcot district kept the accounts of their payments of revenue by tying knots in a bit of string, and that some of them once lodged a complaint against their village headman for collecting more from them than was due, basing their case on the fact that there were more knots in the current year's string than in that of the year preceding. The poligars, he adds, used to intimate the amount of revenue due by sending each of the cultivators a leaf bearing on it as many thumb-nail marks as there were rupees to be paid."
Malayāli. — A territorial name, denoting an inhabitant of the Malayālam country. It is noted, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, that this name came in very handy to class several of the Malabar tribes, who have immigrated to the province, and whose names were unfamiliar to census officials. There is, in the city of Madras, a Malayāli club for inhabitants of the Malayālam country, who are there employed in Government services, as lawyers, or in other vocations. I read that, in 1906, the Malabar Ōnam festival was celebrated at the Victoria Public Hall under the auspices of this club, and a dramatised version of the Malayālam novel Indulekha was performed.
Malayan.— Concerning the Malayans, Mr. A. R. Loftus-Tottenham writes as follows. "The Malayans are a makkathāyam caste, observing twelve days' pollution, found in North Malabar. Their name, signifying hill-men, points to their having been at one time a jungle tribe, but they have by no means the dark complexion and debased physiognomy characteristic of the classes
- ↑ * Manual of the South Arcot district.
