Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/373

Rh vexatious boundary disputes. He had a potential voice in the internal economy of the village, and was often the fidus Achates of the patel (village official). In the malnād, however, the Holeya had degenerated into the agrestic slave, and till a few decades ago under the British rule, not only as regards his property, but also with regard to his body, he was not his own master. The vargdār or landholder owned him as a hereditary slave. The genius of British rule has emancipated him, and his enfranchisement has been emphasized by the allurements of the coffee industry with its free labour and higher wages. It is, however, said that the improvement so far of the status of the outcastes in the malnād has not been an unmixed good, inasmuch as it is likewise a measure of the decadence of the supāri (betel) gardens. Be that as it may, the Holeya in the far west of the province still continues in many respects the bondsman of the local landholder of influence; and some of the social customs now prevailing among the Holeyas there, as described hereunder, fully bear out this fact. "In most of the purely malnād or hilly taluks, each vargdār, or proprietor of landed estate, owns a set of servants called Huttālu or Huttu-Ālu and Mannālu or Mannu-Ālu. The former is the hereditary servitor of the family, born in servitude, and performing agricultural work for the landholder from father to son. The Mannālu is a serf attached to the soil, and changes with it. These are usually of the Holeya class, but in some places men of the Hasalar race have been entertained. To some estates or vargs only Huttu-ālūs are attached, while Mannu-ālūs work on others. Notwithstanding the measure of personal freedom enjoyed by all men at the present time, and the unification of the land tenures in the province under the revenue survey and settlement,