Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/544

MAPPILLA everywhere in their own district they go near monopolising the grocery, hardware, haberdashery, and such other trades; and as petty bazar men they drive a profitable business on the good old principle of small profits and quick returns. No native hawker caters more readily to Mr. Thomas Atkins (the British soldier) than the Moplah, and, in the military stations in Malabar, 'Poker' (a Moplah name) waxes fat and grows rich by undertaking to supply Tommy with tea, coffee, lemonade, tobacco, oilman stores, and other little luxuries."

"Some Māppillas," Mr. A. Chatterton writes,* "have taken to leather- working, and they are considered to be specialists in the making of ceruppus or leather shoes. In Malabar the trade in raw hides and skins is chiefly in the hands of Māppillas. Weekly fairs are held at several places, and all the available hides and skins are put up for sale, and are purchased by Muhammadans." Some Māppillas bind books, and others are good smiths. "The small skull caps, which are the universal head-gear of Māppilla men and boys, are made in different parts of Malabar, but the best are the work of Māppilla women at Cannanore. They are made of fine canvas beautifully embroidered by hand, and fetch in the market between Rs, 2 and Rs. 3."† The Māppillas take an active share in the fish-curing operations along the west coast, and the Mukkuvans, who are the hereditary fishermen of Malabar, are inclined to be jealous of them. A veteran Mukkuvan, at the time of my inspection of the Badagara fish-curing yard in 1900, put the real grievance of his brethren in a nut-shell. In old days, he stated, they used salt-earth for curing fishes. When the fish-curing yards were started,