Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/56

MARAVAN of the more virile sections of the community, especially the Kallans (q.v.), in this game is extraordinary, and, in many villages, cattle are bred and reared specially for it. The best jallikats are to be seen in the Kallan country in Tirumangalam, and next come those in Mēlur and Madura taluks."

"Boomerangs," Dr. G. Oppert writes,* "are used by the Maravans and Kallans when hunting deer. The Madras Museum collection contains three (two ivory, one wooden) from the Tanjore armoury. In the arsenal of the Pudukōttai Rāja a stock of wooden boomerangs is always kept. Their name in Tamil is valai tade (bent stick)." To Mr. R. Bruce Foote, I am indebted for the following note on the use of the boomerang in the Madura district. "A very favourite weapon of the Madura country is a kind of curved throwing-stick, having a general likeness to the boomerang of the Australian aborigines. I have in my collection two of these Maravar weapons obtained from near Sivaganga. The larger measures 24⅛" along the outer curve, and the chord of the arc 17⅝". At the handle end is a rather ovate knob 2¼" long and 1¼" in its maximum thickness. The thinnest and smallest part of the weapon is just beyond the knob, and measures 11/16 " in diameter by 1⅛" in width. From that point onwards its width increases very gradually to the distal end, where it measures 2⅜" across and is squarely truncated. The lateral diameter is greatest three or four inches before the truncated end, where it measures 1". My second specimen is a little smaller than the above, and is also rather less curved. Both are made of hard heavy wood, dark reddish brown in colour as seen through the