Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/289

Rh be called Shōlagas. But there is no intermarriage between Urālis and Shōlagas, though members of the two tribes sometimes interdine. According to another legend, the Urālis and Shōlagas are both descended from Karayan, and the Sivachāris (Lingāyats) from Billaya or Mādhēswaram (see Shōlaga). They speak a patois of mixed Tamil and Canarese, and have a number of exogamous septs, the meaning of the names of which is not clear. They indulge in a large repertoire of nick-names, for the most part of a personal nature, such as donkey-legged, big-navelled, pot-bellied, hare-lipped, hairy like a bear or the tail of a mungoose, toothless, lying, brought up on butter-milk. One man was named Kothē Kallan (kotha, a stone), because he was born on a rock near Kotagiri. The majority of the tribe earn a modest livelihood by collecting minor forest produce, such as myrabolams, wax and honey, and poles for use as primitive breaks for country carts during the ascent of the ghat road. These poles are tied to the carts by ropes, and trail behind on the ground, so that, when the cart stops, the backward course of the wheels is arrested. Some till the soil, and cultivate various kinds of food-grains. Others are sheep and cattle owners. A few families possess land, which is given free of rent by the Forest Department, on condition that they work for the department whenever their services are required. As a class they are not inclined to do hard work, and they appear to get into the clutches of money- lending Chettis. Their staple food is rāgi (Eleusine Coracana). But they eat also sheep, fowls, goat, deer, pigeons and doves, black monkeys, wild boar, hare, hedgehogs, paroquets, quails and partridges, jungle-fowl, woodcock, woodpeckers, and other denizens of the jungle. A man who was asked whether they eat beef,