L A C L A C 183
discernible but for the cocoa-nut groves with which they are thickly covered. The soil is light coral sand, beneath which, a few feet down, lies a stratum of coral stretching over the whole of the island. This coral, which is generally a foot to a foot and a half in thickness, has been in the principal islands wholly excavated, whereby the underlying damp sand is rendered available for cereals. These excavations a work of vast labour were made at a remote period, and according to the native tradition by giants. In these spaces [totam = "garden"] are cultivated coarse grain, pulse, bananas, and vegetables; cocoa-nuts grow abundantly everywhere, and for rice the natives depend upon the mainland.
Population and Trade. – Of the eight Laccadive islands, four are directly under British rule and form part of the South Kanara collectorate in the Madras presidency. The other four (together with Minicoy, noticed below) form part of the estate of the bibi of Cannanore. The following are the names of the islands, with population in 1881: –
British Islands.
Amini 2060
Chetlat 577
Kadamat 245
Kiltaii 790
Total 3672
Cannanore Islands. Agathi 1376 Kawrati 2127 Androt 2896 Kalpéni 1216 Total 7615
making a total for all the islands of 11,287, a dense
population for so small an area. Amini, Kalpeni, Androt,
and Kawrati are the principal or tarwat islands, and in
them only do the high caste natives reside. The others
are called melacheri, or low caste islands. The people are
Moplas, i.e., of mixed Hindu and Arab descent, and are
Mohammedans. Their manners and customs are similar to
those of the coast Moplas; but they maintain their own
ancient caste distinctions. The language spoken is Mala-
yala, but it is written in the Arabic character. Reading
and writing are common accomplishments among the men.
The chief industries are the manufactures of coir and
jaggery, the Laccadive coir being esteemed the best in
India; the various processes are entrusted to the women.
The men employ themselves with boat-building and in
conveying the island produce to the coast – in the case of
the English islands to Mangalore, and in that of the bibi's
islands to Cannanore. In each case the coir is taken by
the ruling Government at lower than market rates, and
the natives are not subject to any other taxation. At
Mangalore they are paid partly in money and partly in rice,
and the rates are not altered for many years. On the
other hand the varying and oppressive tariff imposed upon
the Cannanore islands has led to a diminished and inferior
manufacture of coir, and to frequent complaints. This
monopoly system, however fairly worked by the British
Government, interferes with the trading capabilities of the
natives, and puts them at considerable disadvantage with
their rivals of Minicoy and the Maldives. The exports
from the Laccadives are of the annual value of £17,000.
History and Government. – No data exist for determining at what
period the Laccadives were first colonized. The earliest mention of
them as distinguished from the Maldives seems to be by Albírúní
(circ. 1030), who divides the whole archipelago (Díbaját) into
the Dívah Kúzah or Cowrie Islands (the Maldives), and the Dívah
Kanbar or Coir Islands (the Laccadives). See Journ. Asiat.,
September 1844, p. 265. According to native tradition, the
islands were first occupied about a thousand years ago. The early
polity, according to Mr Robinson, was patriarchal, conducted by a
modalal, or chief inhabitant, and the heads of the principal
families. Each island was independent. This kind of internal
economy seems to have lasted until the advent of the Portuguese.
During their independence the islanders were converted to Islam
by an Arab apostle named Mumba Mulyaka, whose grave at
Androt still imparts a peculiar sanctity to that island. The
kazee of Androt was in 1847 still a member of his family, and was
said to be the twenty-second who had held the office in direct line
from the saint. This gives colour to the tradition that the conver
sion took place about 1250. It is also further corroborated by the story given by Ibu Batuta of the conversion of the Maldives, which occurred, as he heard, four generations (say one hundred and twenty years) before his visit to these islands in 1342. The Portuguese discovered the Laccadives in 1499, and built forts upon them, but about 1545 the natives rose upon their oppressors, and with the aid of the raja of Cherical exterminated them. For this aid the raja obtained the suzerainty of the group, but he afterwards conferred them upon the head of the Cannanore moplas for an annual tribute. The Cannanore raja ceased to pay this tribute about the middle of the 18th century. In 1784 the Amini islands threw off the yoke, and put themselves under the protection of Tippoo, from whom at the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, they passed to the East India Company. The remaining islands had already in 1791 fallen into the power of the Company by the storming of Cannanore, but by the peace of Seringapatam (1792) were permitted to remain under the management of the bibi at a yearly tribute. This has been often in arrear, and on this account these islands have been sequestrated by the British Government since 1877, to the general satisfaction of the inhabitants. See Mr Robinson's Report, Madras, 1874; Mr Hume in Stray Feathers, vol. iv., 1876, Calcutta.
Minicoy (called Máliku by the natives), a small island 5 miles in length, 108 miles south of Kalpéni and 68 miles north of the Maldives, belongs politically to the Laccadives in so far as it forms part of the estate of the bibi of Cannanore. The natives, however, are of the same race and speak the same language as the Maldivians. The population in 1881 was 3915. The people are well behaved, but of a very independent character; they are active and enterprising sailors, and lazy cultivators. They are divided into four classes, viz., málikans, the aristocracy, malumnies, the pilots and mates of vessels, klasies, smaller landed proprietors and sailors, and melacheries, toddy drawers. Minicoy anciently formed part of the Maldive realm, but, probably in the 16th century, was given by a Maldive sultan to his brother. In 1607, when it was visited by Pyrard, it was governed by a lady who for greater security held it of the raja of Caunanore (Pyrard's Voyage, chap, xxiii.). The island has never been restored to the Maldive kings.
LACE * is the name applied to an ornamental open work of threads of flax, cotton, silk, gold, or silver, and occasionally of mohair or aloe fibre. Such threads may be either looped or plaited or twisted together in one of three ways: – (1) with a needle, when the work is distinctively known as "needlepoint lace"; (2) with bobbins, pins, and a pillow or cushion, when the work is known as "pillow lace"; and (3) by machinery, when imitations of both needlepoint and pillow lace patterns are produced.
History. – Special patterns for needlepoint and pillow laces date from the beginning of the 16th century. Before that period such works as might now be classified as laces consisted of small cords of plaited and twitted threads fastened in loops (or "purls") along the edges of costumes, of darning work done upon a net ground, and of drawn and cut embroidery. From these classes of earlier work lace is descended. Pillow lace can be distinctly traced up to the "merletti a piombini" of the 16th century. At a very early period embroidery of geometrical patterns in coloured silk, &c., on a network of small square meshes was known and made throughout Europe. This in the 13th and 14th centuries was known in ecclesiastical circles as "opus filatorium" or "opus araneum" (spider work), and examples dating from the 13th century still exist in public collections. The productions of this art, which has some analogy to weaving, in the early part of the 16th century came to be known as "punto a maglia quadra" in Italy and as "lacis" in France – the patterns, stiff and geometrical, being sometimes cut out of linen or separately sewed and applied to the meshed surface; but more fre quently they were darned in, the stitches being counted as in tapestry, and hence it was known as "point conté" or darned netting. With the development of the renaissance of art, free flowing patterns and figure subjects were introduced and worked in lacis.
Drawn and cut works were ancient forms of embroidery
1 Italian, merletto, trina; Genoese, pizzo; German, Spitzen; French, dentelle; Dutch, kanten; Spanish, encaje. The English word is the Fr. lassis or lacis, connected with the Latin laqueus. Early French laces were also called passements ("insertions").
