Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/79

Rh are not afraid of bogies by night, and would not hesitate to commit nocturnal depredations. My friend, Mr. G.Romilly, on whose estate my investigation of the Paniyans was mainly carried out, assures me that, according to his experience, the domesticated Paniyan, if well paid, is honest, and fit to be entrusted with the responsible duties of night watchman. In some localities, where the Janmis have sold the bulk of their land, and have consequently ceased to find regular employment for them, the Paniyans have taken kindly to working on coffee estates, but comparatively few are thus employed. The word Paniyan means labourer, and they believe that their original occupation was agriculture as it is, for the most part, at the present day. Those, however, who earn their livelihood on estates, only cultivate rice and rāgi (Eleusine coracana) for their own cultivation; and women and children may be seen digging up jungle roots, or gathering pot-herbs for food. They will not eat the flesh of jackals, snakes, vultures, lizards, rats, or other vermin. But I am told that they eat land- crabs, in lieu of expensive lotions, to prevent baldness and grey hairs. They have a distinct partiality for alcohol, and those who came to be measured by me were made more than happy by a present of a two-anna piece, a cheroot, and a liberal allowance of undiluted fiery brandy from the Meppādi bazar. The women are naturally of a shy disposition, and used formerly to run away and hide at the sight of a European. They were at first afraid to come and see me, but confidence was subsequently established, and all the women came to visit me, some to go through the ordeal of measurement, others to laugh at and make derisive comments on those who were undergoing the operation.