family, including the children, receive their new cloths from the Karnavan, or family head. The women also receive any other new cloths meant for some future occasion, as Onam day is considered an auspicious one for receiving such presents. Early in the morning the labourers and cultivators visit their masters with a number of nendram kay, a species of plantain peculiar to Malabar, and receive in return a new cloth, oil, rice, ghi, etc., as becoming their position. There is nothing unusual in the food partaken during the Onam festivities except that the nendram fruit must form one of the dishes. The house of every Nambudri Brahman is thrown open to as many Brahmans as may care to visit it. The Pandi Brahmans, or the Brahman cloth merchants from Tinnevelly who visit Malabar with the mundu cloth specially made for the feast in Ambasamudram and Viravanallur in the Tinnevelly District, are well fed and their cloths are largely in demand. On Onam day a special dish of nendram is partaken by every Malayali—this is called pulukkiya pala norukka.
After the presents have been distributed, the worship of Vishnu succeeds and the feast over,
