Sāyumpadai Tāngi.— The name, meaning supporter of the vanquished army, of a section of Kallans.
Sēdan. — A synonym of Dēvānga. At times of census, Sēda Dāsi has been returned by Dēvānga dancing-girls in the Madura district. The following legend of Savadamma, the goddess of the weaver caste in Coimbatore, is narrated by Bishop Whitehead.* [1]"Once upon a time, when there was fierce conflict between the men and the rākshasas, the men, who were getting defeated, applied for help to the god Siva, who sent his wife Parvati as an avatar or incarnation into the world to help them. The avatar enabled them to defeat the rākshasas, and, as the weaver caste were in the forefront of the battle, she became the goddess of the weavers, and was known in consequence as Savadamman, a corruption of Sēdar Amman, Sēdan being a title of the weavers. It is said that her original home was in the north of India, near the Himalayas."
Segidi. — The Segidis are a Telugu caste of toddy sellers and distillers of arrack, who are found mainly in Ganjam and Vizagapatam.
For the purposes of the Madras Abkāri Act, toddy means fermented or unfermented juice drawn from a cocoanut, palmyra, date, or any other kind of palm-tree. It is laid down, in the Madras Excise Manual, that "unfermented toddy is not subject to any taxation, but it must be drawn in pots freshly coated internally with lime. Lime is prescribed as the substance with which the interior of pots or other receptacles in which sweet toddy is drawn should be coated, as it checks the fermentation of the toddy coming in contact with it; but this effect cannot be secured unless the internal lime
- ↑ * Madras Museum Bulletin, V, 3, 1907.
