Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/527

Rh the limited supply of sandal paste, with which a group of men smeared their bodies, in imitation of the higher classes, before they were photographed. A feast given to the Paliyans by some missionaries was marred at the outset by the unfortunate circumstance that betel and tobacco were placed by the side of the food, these articles being of evil omen as they are placed in the grave with the dead. A question whether they eat beef produced marked displeasure, and even roused an apathetic old woman to grunt "Your other questions are fair. You have no right to ask that." If a Paliyan happens to come across the carcase of a cow or buffalo near a stream, it is abandoned, and not approached for a long time. Leather they absolutely refuse to touch, and one of them declined to carry my camera box, because he detected that it had a leather strap. They make fire with a quartz strike-a-light and steel and the floss of the silk-cotton tree (Bombax malabaricum). They have no means of catching or killing animals, birds, or fish with nets, traps, or weapons, but, if they come across the carcase of a goat or deer in the forest, they will roast and eat it. They catch "vermin" (presumably field rats) by smoking them out of their holes, or digging them out with their digging-sticks. Crabs are caught for eating by children, by letting a string with a piece of cloth tied to the end down the hole, and lifting it out thereof when the crab seizes hold of the cloth with its claws. Of wild beasts they are not afraid, and scare them away by screaming, clapping the hands, and rolling down stones into the valleys. I saw one man, who had been badly mauled by a tiger on the buttock and thigh when he was asleep with his wife and child in a cave. During the dry season they live in natural caves and crevices in rocks, but, if these leak