Tiru-vilakku-nagarattar (dwellers in the city of holy lamps). — A name assumed by Vāniyans (oil-pressers).
Tiyadi.— A synonym of the Tiyāttunni section of Ambalavasis (see Unni).
Tiyan.— The Tiyans, and Izhuvans or Iluvans, are the Malayālam toddy-drawing castes of Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore. The following note, except where otherwise indicated, is taken from an account of the Tiyans of Malabar by Mr. F. Fawcett.
The Tiyans in Malabar number, according to the census returns, 512,063, or 19.3 per cent, of the total population. The corresponding figures for the Izhuvans are 101,638, or 3.8 per cent. The Tiyans have been summed up[1] as the middle class of the west coast, who cultivate the ground, take service as domestics, and follow trades and professions — anything but soldiering, of which they have an utter abhorrence.
The marumakkatāyam system (inheritance through the female line), which obtains in North Malabar, has favoured temporary connections between European men and Tiyan women, the children belonging to the mother's tarvad. Children bred under these conditions, European influence continuing, are often as fair as Europeans. It is recorded, in the Report of the Malabar Marriage Commission, 1894, that "in the early days of British rule, the Tiyan women incurred no social disgrace by consorting with Europeans, and, up to the last generation, if the Sudra girl could boast of her Brahman lover, the Tiyan girl could show more substantial benefits from her alliance with a white man of the ruling race. Happily, the progress of education, and the growth of a wholesome public
- ↑ Lieutenant-General E. F. Burton. An Indian Olio.
