Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/457

Rh reduction in the numbers of these Sundis, who, now that their unscrupulous trade is abolished, have emigrated largely to Boad and other tracts. This is the only case to my knowledge in which a special trade has decayed, and with the best results, as, had it not been so, there is no doubt that the Khond population would very soon have degenerated into pure adscripti glebœ, and the Sundis become the landlords."

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that "besides ippa (liquor distilled from the blossom of Bassia latifolia), the hill people brew beer from rice, sāmai (the millet Panicum miliare), and rāgi (Eleusine Coracana). They mash the grain in the ordinary manner, add some more water to it, mix a small quantity of ferment with it, leave it to ferment three or four days, and then strain off the grain. The beer so obtained is often highly intoxicating, and different kinds of it go by different names, such as londa, pandiyam, and maddikallu. The ferment which is used is called the sāraiya-mandu (spirit drug) or Sondi-mandu (Sondi's drug), and can be bought in the weekly market. There are numerous recipes for making it, but the ingredients are always jungle roots and barks."* It is sold made up into small balls with rice. The actual shop-keepers and still-owners in the hills, especially in the Parvatipur and Pālkonda agencies, are usually immigrants of the Sondi caste, a wily class who know exactly how to take advantage of the sin which doth so easily beset the hill man, and to wheedle from him, in exchange for the strong drink which he cannot do without, his ready money, his little possessions, his crops, and finally his land itself.