Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/402

IDAIYAN of Krishna's birthday. They show special reverence for the vessels used in dairy operations. The proverb that the sense of an Idaiyan is on the back of his neck, for it was there that he received the blows, refers to " the story of the shepherd entering the gate of his house with a crook placed horizontally on his shoulders, and finding himself unable to get in, and his being made able to do so by a couple of blows on his back, and the removal of the crook at the same time. Another proverb is that there is neither an Āndi among Idaiyans, nor a Tādan among the potters. The Āndi is always a Saivite beggar, and, the Idaiyans being always Vaishnavites, they can never have in their midst a beggar of the Saivite sect, or vice versâ. Being extremely stupid, whenever any dispute arises among them, they can never come to any definite settlement, or, as the proverb says, the disputes between Idaiyans are never easily settled. Keeping and rearing cattle, grazing and milking them, and living thereby, are their allotted task in life, and so they are never good agriculturists. This defect is alluded to in the proverb that the field watered by the Idaiyan, or by a member of the Palli caste, must ever remain a waste." * Other proverbs, quoted by the Rev. H. Jensen,† are as follows: —
 * The shepherd can get some fool to serve him.


 * Like a shepherd who would not give anything, but showed an ewe big with young.


 * The shepherd destroyed half, and the fool half.

In 1904, an elementary school for Idaiyans, called the Yādava school, was established at Madura.