Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/359

Rh and given a village named Halepaikas as a jaghir (hereditary assignment of land). Some Halēpaiks say that they belong to the Tengina (cocoanut palm) section, because they are engaged in tapping that palm for toddy. There is intermarriage between the Canarese-speaking Halēpaiks and the Tulu-speaking Billava toddy-drawers, and, in some places, the Billavas also call themselves Halēpaiks. The Halēpaiks have exogamous septs or balis, which run in the female line. As examples of these, the following may be noted: —

Chendi (Cerbera Odollum), Honnē (Calophyllum inophyllum), Tolar (wolf), Dēvana (god) and Ganga. It is recorded * of the Halēpaiks of the Canara district in the Bombay Presidency that "each exogamous section, known as a bali (literally a creeper), is named after some animal or tree, which is held sacred by the members of the same. This animal, tree or flower, etc., seems to have been once considered the common ancestor of the members of the bali, and to the present day it is both worshipped by them, and held sacred in the sense that they will not injure it. Thus the members of the nāgbali, named apparently after the nāgchampa flower, will not wear this flower in their hair, as this would involve injury to the plant. The Kadavēbali will not kill the sambhar (deer: kadavē), from which they take their name." The Halēpaiks of South Canara seem to attach no such importance to the sept names. Some, however, avoid eating a fish called Srinivāsa, because they fancy that the streaks on the body have a resemblance to the Vaishnavite sectarian mark (nāmam). All the Halēpaiks of the Kundapūr tāluk profess to be Vaishnavites, and have become the disciples of a