Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/142

KAMMALAN king and divided his body. The Kammālan son took his head and used it as a weighing pan, while the Balija son made a pedler's carpet out of the skin, and threads out of the sinews for stringing bangles. A quarrel arose, because each thought the other had got the best of the division, and all the other castes joined in, and took the side of either the Kammālan or the Balija. Right and left hand dancing-girls, temples, and mandapams, are still in existence at Conjeeveram, and elsewhere in the Tamil country. Thus, at Tanjore, there are the Kammāla Tēvadiyāls, or dancing-girls. As the Kammālans belong to the left-hand section, dancing-girls of the right-hand section will not perform before them, or at their houses. Similarly, musicians of the right-hand section will not play in Kammālan houses. In olden days, Kammālans were not allowed to ride in palanquins through the streets of the right hands. If they did, a riot was the result. Such riots were common during the eighteenth century. Thus, Fryer refers to one of these which occurred at Masulipatam, when the contumacy of the Kamsalas (Telugu artisans) led to their being put down by the other castes with the aid of the Moors. The Kammālans call themselves Āchāri and Paththar, which are equivalent to the Brāhman titles Ācharya and Bhatta, and claim a knowledge of the Vēdas. Their own priests officiate at marriages, funerals, and on other ceremonial occasions. They wear the sacred thread, which they usually don on the Upakarmam day, though some observe the regular thread investiture ceremony. Most of them claim to be vegetarians. Non-Brāhmans do not treat them as Brāhmans, and do not salute them with the namaskāram (obeisance). Their women, unlike those of other castes, throw the end of their body-cloth