Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/538

MAPPILLA janmi who, through the courts, evicted, whether fraudulently or otherwise, a substantial tenant, was deemed to have merited death, and it was considered a religious virtue, not a fault, to have killed such a man, and to have afterwards died in arms, fighting against an infidel Government." Mr. MacGregor, formerly Collector of Malabar, had, some years before, expressed himself as " perfectly satisfied that the Māppilla outrages are agrarian. Fanaticism is merely the instrument, through which the terrorism of the landed classes is aimed at."

In 1884 an outbreak occurred near Malappuram, and it was decided by Government to disarm the tāluks of Ernād, Calicut, and Walluvanād. Notwithstanding the excited state of the Māppillas at the time, the delicate operation was successfully carried out by the district officers, and 17,295 arms, including 7,503 fire-arms of various kinds, were collected. In the following year, the disarming of the Ponnāni tāluk was accomplished. Of these confiscated arms, the Madras Museum possesses a small collection, selected from a mass of them which were hoarded in the Collector's office, and were about to be buried in the deep sea.

In 1896 a serious outbreak occurred at Manjeri, and two or three notoriously objectionable landlords were done away with. The fanatics then took up a position, and awaited the arrival of the British troops. They took no cover, and, when advancing to attack, were mostly shot down at a distance of 700 to 800 yards, every man wounded having his throat cut by his nearest friend. In the outbreak of 1894, a Māppilla youth was wounded, but not killed. The tidings was conveyed to his mother, who merely said, with the stern majesty of the Spartan matron of old, 'If I were a man, I would not