Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/93

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71
PANJUKKARA

sawing motion, rapidly to and fro across it by two men, until the cloth is ignited by the incandesent particles of wood in the groove cut by the sharp edge. The cloth is then blown with the lips into a blaze, and the tobacco or cooking fire can be lighted.

At Pudupādi an elephant mahout was jealously guarding a bit of bamboo stick with notches cut in it, each notch representing a day for which wages were due to him. The stick in question had six notches, representing six days' wages.

Average height 157'4 cm. Nasal index 95 (max. 108.6). The average distance from the tip of the middle finger to the top of the patella was 4.6 cm. relative to stature = 100, which approximates very closely to the recorded results of measurement of long-limbed African negroes.

Panjai.__Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a sub-division of Pāndya Vellāla. The name Panjai, indicating a poverty-stricken individual, is usually applied to mendicant Pandārams.

Panjāram.— Panjāram or Panchāramkatti is the name of a sub-division of the Idaiyans, derived from the peculiar gold ornament, which the women wear. It is said that, in this division, widow marriage is commonly practiced, because Krishna used to place a similar ornament round the necks of Idaiyan widows of whom he became enamoured, and that this sub-division was the result of his amours with them.

Panjukkāra (cotton-man). — An occupational name of a sub-division of Vellālas, who are not at the present day connected with the cotton trade. They call themselves Panjukkāra Chettis. The equivalent panjāri (pinjāri) or Panjukotti occurs as a Tamil synonym for Dūdēkula (Muhammadan cotton-cleaners).