Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/51

Rh hundred) are returned as sub-castes of the Malayālan Pānāns. For the following account of the Pānāns of Travancore, I am indebted to Mr. N. Subramani Aiyar. The word is of Tamil origin, and means a tailor. The title taken by them is Panikkan, the usual honorific appellation of most of the industrial castes of Malabar. They are supposed to be one with the Pānāns of the Tamil country, though much below them in the social scale. They observe a pollution distance of thirty-six feet, but keep Mannāns and Vēdans at a distance of eight, and Pulayas and Paraiyas at a distance of thirty-two feet from them. They are their own barbers and washermen. They will eat food prepared by Kammālans, of whom there is a tradition that they are a degraded branch. Tiruvarangan, one of the popular sages of Malabar, who are reputed to be the descendants of a Paraiya woman, is said to have been a Pānān, and the Pānāns pay him due reverence. In the Kēralolpatti, the traditional occupation of the Pānāns is said to be exorcism, and in British Malabar this occupation seems to be continued at the present day. Umbrella-making is a secondary occupation for the men. In Travancore, however, the only occupation pursued by the Pānāns is tailoring. The tāli-kettu celebration takes place before the girl attains puberty. If this ceremony is intended to signify a real marriage, the girl is taken to her husband's house on the fourth day of the first menstrual period, and they remain thenceforth man and wife. Otherwise a sambandham ceremony has to be performed either by the tāli-tier or some one else, to establish conjugal relations. Inheritance is mostly paternal. The dead are buried, and death pollution lasts for sixteen days. The spirits of deceased ancestors are appeased once a year by the offering of cooked food