Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/526

MAPPILLA want blood?' — 'Yes'. Then the Thangal asks his followers and relatives to give him what he asks. A young bull is brought into the room and killed on the spot, and the patient is made to drink the warm blood. Then the Thangal commands him to leave the place at once. The patient, weak and exhausted, gathers up all his strength, and runs out of the house, aided by a cane which is freely applied to his back. He runs as far as he can, and drops exhausted on the road. Then he is carried back, and, marvellous to say, he makes a good recovery." "The most important institution," Mr. A. S. Vaidyanatha Aiyar writes,* "among the Māppilas of Malabar is the office of the Mahadun (Makhdūm) at Ponnāni, which dates its origin about four centuries ago, the present Mahadun being the twenty-fifth of his line. [The line of the original Makhdūm ended with the eighteenth, and the present Makhdūm and his six immediate predecessors belong to a different line.] In the Mahadun there was a sect of religious head for the Māppilas from Kodangalur to Mangalore. His office was, and is still held in the greatest veneration. His decrees were believed to be infallible. (His decrees are accepted as final.) The Zamorins recognised the Mahadunship, as is seen from the presentation of the office dress at every succession. In the famous Jamath mosque they (the Mahaduns) have been giving instruction in Korān ever since they established themselves at Ponnāni. Students come here from different parts of the country. After a certain standard of efficiency, the degree of Musaliar is conferred upon the deserving Mullas (their name in their undergraduate course).