Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/57

Rh ::4. Four silver amulet-cases, containing yantrams on a copper sheet for curing some ailment, at the waist.


 * 5. Two gold kadakkans in each ear. A white spot over the glabella.


 * (c) North Malabar, Females.

In olden days, the women used to wear coloured and striped cloths round the waist, and hanging to the knees. The breast was not covered. The body above the waist was not allowed to be covered, except during the period of death pollution. Nowadays, white is generally the colour to be seen, and the body is seldom covered above the waist — never one may say, except (and then only sometimes) in the towns. The Izhuvan women in Malabar always wear blue cloths: just one cloth rolled tightly round the waist, and hanging to the knees. Of late, they have taken to wearing also a blue cloth drawn tight over the breast.

Ornaments. The thōdu, which is now sometimes worn by Tiyan women, is not a Tiyan ornament. The ear-rings, called kathila and ananthod, are the Tiyan ornaments, and look like strings of gold beads with pendants. Discs of white metal or lead are used to stretch and keep open the dilated lobes of the ears, in which gold ornaments are worn when necessary or possible. Venetian sequins, real or imitation, known in Malabar as amāda, are largely used for neck ornaments. There is a Malabar proverb that one need not look for an insect's burrow in amāda, meaning that you cannot find anything vile in a worthy person. Turning now to the subject of marriage. In the ordinary course of things, a marriage would not be made between a Tiyan girl of South Malabar and a Tiyan man of North Malabar, for the reason that the children