Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/495

Rh considered necessary. The Malayan who is to take the part puts on a cap made of strips of cocoanut leaf, and strips of the same leaves tied to a bent bamboo stick round his waist. His face and chest are daubed with yellow paint, and designs are drawn thereon in red or black. Strings are tied tightly round the left arm near the elbow and wrist, and the swollen area is pierced with a knife. The blood spouts out, and the performer waves the arm, so that his face is covered with the blood. A fowl is waved before him, and decapitated. He puts the neck in his mouth, and sucks the blood. The disguises are generally assumed at night. The exorcism consists in drawing complicated designs of squares, circles, and triangles, on the ground with white, black, and yellow flour. While the man who has assumed the disguise dances about to the accompaniment of drums, songs are sung by Malayan men and women.

Malayan.— A division of Panikkans in the Tamil country, whose exogamous septs are known by the Malayālam name illam (house).  Maldivi.__A territorial name, meaning a native of the Maldive islands, returned by twenty-two persons in Tanjore at the Census, 1901.  '''Malē Kudiya. —''' A synonym of Kudiya, denoting those who live in the hills.  Malēru.— It is noted, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, that "in some temples of the Malnād there exists a set of females, who, though not belonging to the Natuva class, are yet temple servants like them, and are known by the name of Malēru. Any woman who eats the sacrificial rice strewn on the balipītam (sacrificial altar) at once loses caste, and becomes a public woman, or Malēru." The children of Malērus by Brāhmans are termed Golakas. Any Malēru woman 