Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/480

KORAMA flesh of alligators (crocodiles), and they share with one or two other divisions of the slaves a curious scruple or prejudice against carrying any four-legged animal, dead or alive. This extends to anything with four legs, such as chairs, tables, cots, etc., which they cannot be prevailed upon to lift unless one leg be removed. As they work as coolies, this sometimes produces inconvenience. A somewhat similar scruple obtains among the Bygas of Central India, whose women are not allowed to sit or lie on any four-legged bed or stool." Like the Koragas, the Bākudas of South Canara " will not carry a bedstead unless the legs are first taken off, and it is said that this objection rests upon a supposed resemblance between the four-legged cot and the four-legged ox." Of the language spoken by the Koragars, Mr. Ullal Raghvendra Rao states that "it is a common belief that the Koragar has a peculiar dialect generally spoken by him at his koppu. He may be induced to give an account of his feasts, his gods, his family, but a word about his dialect will frighten him out of his wits. Generally polite and well-behaved, he becomes impolite and unmannerly when questioned about his dialect." "All the Hindoos," Mr. Wallhouse writes, "believe that the Koragars have a language of their own, understood only by themselves, but it seems doubtful whether this is anything more than an idiom, or slang." A vocabulary of the Koraga dialect is contained in the South Canara Manual (1895).  Korama.— See Korava.  Korava.— Members of this nomad tribe, which permeates the length of the Indian peninsula, through countries where many languages and dialects are spoken, are likely to be known by different names in different 