Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/452

VETTUVAN bamboo and reed huts, and will eat anything down to carrion. Yet they consider themselves superior to Cherumans and Pulaiyans, and are careful not to be polluted by them. This same name is also borne by a class of masons and salt-workers in the low country in Malabar."

The Malabar Vēttuvans are said to have a fantastic legend, showing that they were not originally as low as they are at the present day in the social scale. "It is related that one of their tribe went and asked a high-caste Nāyar to give him a daughter in marriage. The Nāyar offered to do so on condition that the whole tribe would come to his place and dance on berries, each one who fell to be shot with arrows. The tribe foolishly agreed to the condition, and went and danced, with the result that, as each one tripped and fell, he or she was mercilessly shot dead with arrows. A little girl who survived this treatment was secretly rescued, and taken away by a compassionate Nāyar, who married her into his family. From this union, the present day Vēttuvans affirm their origin is to be traced. Up to this day they hold the caste of that particular Nāyar in very great veneration." * The costume of these Vēttuvans has been described as follows.† " The men wear a short loin-cloth, secured round the waist by a belt which is also used as a sling during hunting expeditions. They also wear brass ear-rings, and grow a bit of moustache, and a little stumpy beard. The dress of the women consists of three clusters of long leaves, suspended from the waist and tied on by a cheap girdle. According to a tribal legend, when, in the morning of time, costumes were being distributed by the deity to the various races of the earth,