Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/112

MUDUVAR cover as instinctively as a quail chick. There are now and again men in the tribe who aspire to read, but I do not know how far any of them succeed.

The Muduvars are becoming accustomed to quite wonderful things — the harnessing of water which generates electricity to work machinery, the mono-rail tram which now runs through their country, and, most wonderful of all, the telephone. An old man described how he would raise envy and wonder in the hearts of his tribe by relating his experience. "I am the first of my caste to speak and hear over five miles," said he, with evident delight.

I have alluded to the two different types of countenance; perhaps there is a third resulting from a mixture of the other two. The first is distinctly aquiline-nosed and thin-lipped, and to this type the men generally belong. The second is flat-nosed, wide-nostrilled, and thick-lipped, and this fairly represents the women, who compare most unfavourably with the men in face. I have never seen men of the second type, but of an intermediate type they are not uncommon. On the Cardamom Hills there may still exist a tribe of dwarfs, of which very little is known. The late Mr. J. D. Munro had collected a little information about them. Mr. A. W. Turner had the luck to come across one, who was caught eating part of a barking deer raw. Mr. Turner managed to do a little conversation with the man by signs, and afterwards he related the incident to Srīrangam, a good old Muduvar shikāri (sportsman), who listened thoughtfully, and then asked " Did you not shoot him ? " The question put a new complexion on to the character of the usually peaceful and timid Muduvar.

I know the Muduvars to be capable of real affection. Kanjan was very proud of his little son, and used to make