Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/121

Rh result thereof on Friday were handed over to the Māppilla community. It is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that "conversion to Islam is common among this caste. The converts are called Puislam or Putiya Islam* (new Islam). All Puislams follow the occupation of fishing. In the northernmost taluks there is a rule that Mukkuva females during their periods cannot remain in the house, but must occupy the house of a Māppilla, which shows that the two castes live on very close terms." The fishermen at Tanūr are for the most part Puislamites, and will not go out fishing on Fridays.

From a recent note (1908), I gather that the Mukkuvas and Puislams of Tanūr have been prospering of late years, and would appear to be going in for a display of their prosperity by moving about arrayed in showy shirts, watch-chains, shoes of the kind known as Arabi cherippu, etc. This sort of ostentation has evidently not been appreciated by the Moplahs, who, it is said, sent round the Mukkuva village, known as Mukkadi, some Cherumas, numbering over sixty, to notify by beat of kerosene tins that any Mukkuva or Puislam who went into the Moplah bazaar wearing a shirt or coat or shoes would go in peril of his life. Some days after this alleged notification, two Mukkuvas and a Mukkuva woman complained to the Tirūr Sub- Magistrate that they had been waylaid by several Moplahs on the public road in the Tanūr bazaar, and had been severely beaten, the accused also robbing the woman of some gold ornaments which were on her person. I am informed that Tanūr is the only place where this feeling exists. Puislams and Māppillas settle down together peacefully enough elsewhere.