Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/537

Rh are said to have first come to Calicut, whence they emigrated to Cranganūr. "The White Jews," Mr. Adler writes, "claiming that they, and they alone, are the true descendants of the aboriginal Jews of Cranganūr, retain the copper tablets in their possession, and boast that, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Rājah of Cochin invested the head of the Hallegua family with the hereditary title of Mudaliar or Noble [and a wand with a silver knob as a sign of his dignity], with the power of punishing certain crimes. The males of that family still bear the title, but their feudal rights have been abrogated. Nowadays the number of White Jews has dwindled to less than 200, so that it was easy to procure a list of all their names. From the foreign origin of their surnames (Kindel, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Koder, Roby, Sassoon), as well as for other reasons, it seems certain that the White Jews are late comers, who did not settle in India till after the destruction of Cranganūr. They were traders, who came to Cochin; they prospered under the rule of the Dutch, and built their synagogue and quarter after the Black Jews were already established there. Though, now, they hold themselves jealously aloof from the Black Jews, they were at first quite intimate and friendly. The Indian environment has had the opposite effect to that which England has had upon our Ashkenazim and our no longer exclusive Sephardim. In India caste is varna, which means colour, and their difference in colour has produced caste distinctions among the Indian Jews. But, although the White Jews are fair, some of them are certainly not quite white, nor are the Black Jews quite black. Some of the ' Black ' Jews are hardly distinguishable from their 'White' brethren. Their customs,