Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/180

PARAVAN kindness, permitted intermarriages, and even allowed them to assume their surnames, so that we find among them many Da Limas, Da Cruzs, Da Andrados, Da Canhas, etc. They gave the chief of the Paravas the title of Dom, and allowed him the exclusive right of wearing a gold chain with a cross as a badge of nobility. [The name of a recent hereditary chief or Jāti Talaivan or Talaivamore of the Paravas was Gabriel de Cruz Lazarus Motha Vas.] As soon as the Dutch took possession of Tutocoryn (Tuticorin) and other adjacent towns where the Paravas are found, they employed Dr. Baldæus and a few other ministers of their persuasion to suppress the Roman Catholic faith, and to persuade the Paravas to adopt their own in its stead; but in this they met with a total failure, and were once very nearly bringing on a general revolt. Notwithstanding the intolerance of the Dutch with regard to the Romish Church, the Paravas still remember them with gratitude, as they afforded them the means of extensive livelihood by establishing in their principal town (Tutocoryn) a public manufactory of cloth, and thus maintaining a considerable working capital." Concerning the history of the Paravas, and their connection with the pearl-fisheries on the Indian side of the Gulf of Manaar, much information is given by Mr. J. Hornell,* from whose account the following extracts are taken. "When the Portuguese rounded Cape Comorin, they found the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar in the hands of the Paravas, whom tradition shows to have had control of this industry from time immemorial. Of the origin of these people we know extremely little. We know, however, that in