Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/17

Rh occupation were assigned to them at rates varying from ten to twenty annas per acre. The bhurty or shifting system of cultivation, under which the Kotas held their lands, was formally, but nominally, abolished in 1862-64; but it was practically and finally done away with at the revenue settlement of the Nīlgiri plateau. The Kota lands are now held on puttas under the ordinary ryotwari tenure. In former days, opium of good quality was cultivated by the Badagas, from whom the Kotas got poppy-heads,which their herbalists used for medicinal purposes. At the present time, the Kotas purchase opium in the bazar, and use it as an intoxicant. The Kota women have none of the fearlessness and friendliness of the Todas, and, on the approach of a European to their domain, bolt out of sight, like frighted rabbits in a warren, and hide within the inmost recesses of their huts. As a rule they are clad in filthily dirty clothes, all tattered and torn, and frequently not reaching as low as the knees. In addition to domestic duties, the women have to do work in the fields, fetch water and collect firewood, with loads of which,supported on the head by a pad of bracken fern (Pteris aquilina) leaves, and bill-hook slung on the shoulder, old and young women, girls and boys, may continually be seen returning to the Kotagiri village. The women also make baskets, and rude earthen pots from a black clay found in swamps on a potter's wheel. This consists of a disc made of dry mud, with an iron spike, by means of which it is made to revolve in a socket in a stone fixed in the space in front of the houses, which also acts as a threshing-floor. The earthenware vessels used by the Todas for cooking purposes, and those used in dairy work, except those of the inner room of the ti