Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/552

KORAVA "In 1884, Mr. Stevenson, who was then the District Superintendent of Police, North Arcot, devised a scheme for the regeneration of the Koravas of that district. He obtained for the tribe a tract of Government' land near Gudiyattam, free of assessment for ten years, and also a grant of Rs. 200 for sinking wells. Licenses were also issued to the settlers to cut firewood at specially favourable rates. He also prevailed upon the Zemindar of Karvetnegar to grant twenty-five cawnies of land in Tiruttani for ten years for another settlement, as well as some building materials. Unfortunately the impecunious condition of the Zemindar precluded the Tiruttani settlement from deriving any further privileges which were necessary to keep the colony going, and its existence was, therefore, cut short. The Gudiyattam colony, on the other hand, exhibited some vitality for two or three years, but, in 1887, it, too, went the way of the Tiruttani colony."* I gather, from the Police Administration Report, 1906, that a scheme is being worked out, the object of which is to give a well-known wandering criminal gang some cultivable land, and so enable the members of it to settle down to an honest livelihood. At the census, 1891, Korava was returned as a sub-division of Paraiyans, and the name is also applied to Jogis employed as scavengers. †

The following note on the Koravas of the west coast is interesting as showing that Malabar is one of the homes of the now popular game of Diavolo, which has become epidemic in some European countries. "In Malabar, there is a class of people called Koravas, who