Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/461

Rh whom they carried away to Kangundi. To recover them, seven Vellāla men set out with seven dogs, leaving instructions with their wives that, if the dogs returned alone, they should consider that they had perished, and should cause the funeral ceremonies to be performed. Arriving at the Pālār, they found the river in flood, and crossed it with difficulty; but their dogs, after swimming half way, turned back and returned to Conjeeveram. The men, however, continued their journey, and killed the Vēdars who had taken away their maidens, after which they went back to their homes, but found that they had been given up as lost, their wives had become widows, their funeral ceremonies performed, and they were in consequence outcastes. Under these circumstances, they contracted marriages with some Vēdar women, and retired to the Javādis, where they took to cultivation, and became the ancestors of the Malaiāli caste. This account has been preserved by the Malaiālis in a small palm-leaf book." There is, Mr. Francis writes,* a tradition in the South Arcot district that " the hills were inhabited by Vēdans, and that the Malaiālis killed the men, and wedded the women; and at marriages a gun is still fired in the air to represent the death of the Vēdan husband." The Malaiālis returned themselves, at the last census, as Karaikkāt Vellālas. The Malaiālis of South Arcot call themselves Kongu Vellālas. All the branches of the community agree in saying that they are Vellālans, who emigrated from Kānchipuram, bringing with them their god Karirāman, and, at the weddings of the Kalrāyans in South Arcot, the presiding priest sings a kind of chant just before the tāli is tied, which begins with the words Kānchi, the (sacred) place, and Karirāman in