Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/545

Rh and Government salt was issued, the Mukkuvans thought that they were going to be heavily taxed. They did not understand exactly what was going to happen, and were suspicious. The result was that they would have nothing to do with the curing-yards. The use of salt-earth was stopped on the establishment of Government salt, and some of the fishermen were convicted for illegal use thereof. They thought that, if they held out, they would be allowed to use salt-earth as formerly. Meanwhile, the Māppillas, being more wide-awake than the Mukkuvans, took advantage of the opportunity (in 1884), and erected yards, whereof they are still in possession. A deputation of Mukkuvans waited on me. Their main grievance was that they are hereditary fishermen, and formerly the Māppillas were only the purchasers of fish. A few years ago, the Māppillas started as fishermen on their own account, with small boats and thattuvala (tapping nets), in using which the nets, with strips of cocoanut leaves tied on to the ropes, are spread, and the sides of the boats beaten with sticks and staves, to drive the fish into the net. The noise made extends to a great distance, and consequently the shoals go out to sea, too far for the fishermen to follow in pursuit. In a petition, which was submitted to me by the Mukkuvan fish-curers at Badagara, they asked to have the site of the yard changed, as they feared that their women would be 'unchastised' at the hands of the Māppillas.

"Small isolated attempts," Major Holland-Pryor writes, "to recruit Māppillas were made by various regiments quartered in Malabar some years ago, but without success. This was probably owing to the fact that the trial was made on too small a scale, and that the system of mixed companies interfered with their