Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/511

Rh barbers, but wash clothes and shave for one another. The Mannāns stand ahead of the other hill-men from their knowledge of medicine, though they resort more to Chāttu than to herbs. Drinking is a very common vice. Marumakkathayam is the prevailing form of inheritance (in the female line); but it is customary to give a portion to the sons also. Marriage takes the form of tāli-tying. The tāli (marriage badge) is removed on the death of the husband. Women generally wait for two years to marry a second husband, after the death of the first. A Mannān claims the hand of his maternal uncle's daughter. The Sāsta of Sabarimala and Periyār is devoutly worshipped. The Mannāns are experts in collecting honey. They eat the flesh of the monkey, but not that of the crocodile, snake, buffalo or cow. They are fast decreasing in numbers, like the other denizens of the hills."*

Concerning the Mannāns, Mr. O. H. Bensley writes as follows.† "I enjoy many pleasant reminiscences of my intercourse with these people. Their cheery and sociable disposition, and enjoyment of camp life, make it quite a pleasure to be thrown into contact with them. Short, sturdy, and hairless, the Mannāns have all the appearances of an 'aboriginal' race. The Mannān country extends southward from the limit occupied by the Muduvans on the Cardamom Hills to a point south of the territory now submerged by the Periyār works.‡ They have, moreover, to keep to the east of the Periyār river. Smallpox ravages their villages, and fever lives in the air they breathe. Within the present generation, three of their settlements were at the point of extinction,