Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/215

Rh renders one of the Tamil songs bearing on the subject as follows: —
 * "Oh! potter chief..... what toil hath befallen thee!
 * The descendant of the Cora kings......
 * Hath gained the world of gods. And so
 * Tis thine to shape an urn so vast
 * That it shall cover the remains of such an one."

The legend concerning the origin of the potter classes is narrated in the article on Kummaras. " It is," Mr. E. Holder writes,* " supposed by themselves that they are descended from a Brāhmin father and Sūdra mother, for the sacrificial earthen vessels, which are now made by them, were, according to the Vēdas, intended to be made by the priests themselves. Some of the potters still wear the sacred thread, like the Kammālars or artisan class. They are generally illiterate, though some of their class have earned distinction as sound scholars, especially of late years. The women assist the men in their work, chiefly where delicacy of execution is needed. On the whole, the potters are a poor class compared with the Kammālar class, which includes jewellers, metal-workers and wood-workers. Their occupation is, on that account, somewhat despised by others."

The potter's apparatus is described by Monier Williams † as "a simple circular horizontal well-balanced fly-wheel, generally two or three feet in diameter, which can be made to rotate for two or three minutes by a slight impulse. This the potter loads with clay, and then, with a few easy sweeps and turns of his hands, he moulds his material into beautiful curves and symmetrical shapes, and leaves the products of his skill to bake