Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/82

KALLAN are Kallars, and, as a rule, they are a wealthy and well-to-do class. The Kallar ryots, who inhabit the villages along the banks of the Cauvery, in their dress and appearance generally look quite like Vellālas. Some of the less romantic and inoffensive characteristics of the Kallars in Madura and Tinnevelly are found among the recent immigrants from the south, who are distinguished from the older Kallar colonies by the general term Terkattiyār, literally southerns, which includes emigrants of other castes from the south. The Terkattiyārs are found chiefly in the parts of the district which border on Pudukōta. Kallars of this group grow their hair long all over the head exactly like women, and both men and women enlarge the holes in the lobes of their ears to an extraordinary size by inserting rolls of palm-leaf into them." The term Terkattiyār is applied to Kallan, Maravan, Agamudaiyan, and other immigrants into the Tanjore district. At Mayaveram, for example, it is applied to Kallans, Agamudaiyans, and Valaiyans. It is noted, in the Census Report, 1891, that Agamudaiyan and Kallan were returned as sub-divisions of Maravans by a comparatively large number of persons. "Maravan is also found among the sub-divisions of Kallan, and there can be little doubt that there is a very close connection between Kallans, Maravans, and Agamudaiyans." " The origin of the Kallar caste," Mr.F. S. Mullaly writes,* "as also that of the Maravars and Ahambadayars, is mythologically traced to Indra and Aghalia, the wife of Rishi Gautama. The legend is that Indra and Rishi Gautama were, among others, rival suitors for the hand of Aghalia. Rishi Gautama was the successful one. This so incensed Indra that he