Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/539

Rh come back wounded.'* "Those who die fighting for the faith are reverenced as martyrs and saints, who can work miracles from the Paradise to which they have attained. A Māppilla woman was once benighted in a strange place. An infidel passed by, and, noticing her sorry plight, tried to take advantage of it to destroy her virtue. She immediately invoked the aid of one of the martyrs of Malappuram. A deadly serpent rushed out of a neighbouring thicket, and flew at the villain, who had dared to sully the chastity of a chosen daughter. Once, during a rising, a Māppilla, who preferred to remain on the side of order and Government, stood afar off, and watched with sorrow the dreadful sight of his co-religionists being cut down by the European soldiery. Suddenly his emotions underwent a transformation, for there, through his blinding tears and the dust and smoke of the battle, he saw a wondrous vision. Lovely houris bent tenderly over fallen martyrs, bathed their wounds, and gave them to drink delicious sherbet and milk, and, with smiles that outshone the brightness of the sun, bore away the fallen bodies of the brave men to the realms beyond. The watcher dashed through the crowd, and cast in his lot with the happy men who were fighting such a noble fight. And, after he was slain, these things were revealed to his wife in a vision, and she was proud thereat. These, and similar stories, are believed as implicitly as the Korān is believed. "†

It is noted by Mr. Logan ‡ that the custom of the Nāyars, in accordance with which they sacrificed their lives for the honour of the king, "was readily adopted by the Māppillas, who also at times — as at the great Mahāmakham twelfth year feast at Tirunāvāyi — devoted