Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/55

Rh advised by Karthikēya (Subramanya) and Vīrabāhu to desist from so doing. He paid no heed, and a fight ensued. The demon sent his son Vajrabāhu to meet the enemy, and he was slain by Vīrabāhu, who displayed the different parts of his body in the following manner. The vertebral column was made to represent a pole, round which the other bones were placed, and the guts tightly wound round them. The connective tissues were used as ropes to support the pole. The skull was used as a jaya-mani (conquest bell), and the skin hoisted as a flag. The trident of Vīrabāhu was fixed to the top of the pole, and, standing over it, he announced his victory over the world. The Nattukattāda Nāyanmars claim to be the descendants of Vīrabāhu. Their head-quarters are at Conjeeveram. They are regarded as slightly inferior to the Kaikōlans, with whom ordinarily they do not intermarry. The Kaikōlans have to pay them as alms a minimum fee of four annas per loom annually. Another class of mendicant, called Ponnambalaththar, which is said to have sprung up recently, poses as true caste beggars attached to the Kaikōlans, from whom, as they travel about the country, they solicit alms. Some Kaikōlans gave Ontipuli as the name of their caste beggars. The Ontipulis, however, are Nokkans attached to the Pallis. The Kaikōlan community is, as already indicated, divided into seventy-two nādus or dēsams, viz., forty four mēl (western) and twenty-eight kīl (eastern) nādus. Intermarriages take. place between members of seventy-one of these nādus. The great Tamil poet Ottaikūththar is said to have belonged to the Kaikōlan caste and to have sung the praises of all castes except his own. Being angry on this account, the Kaikōlans urged him to sing in praise of them. This he consented to do,