Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/50

36 Muppans do not observe the custom usual in Malabar, among all Hindus as well as among all the lower non-Hindu races, for a man to allow his hair,—all the hair on his body,—to grow so long as his wife is with child.

A woman is delivered in a small hut, erected for the purpose, a few yards to the south of the pâdi, and there she remains during the following forty-five days, having for company a woman of her own pâḍi. At the end of this period she bathes in a stream, washes her clothes, receives new ones, and after "holy water" (brought from the nearest Hindu temple) has been sprinkled over her and over the little shed, she returns to her hut, purified of all pollution.

Conversation turning towards the subject, I endeavoured to elicit from some Muppans what they considered to be downright bad,—the worst action a man could be guilty of. They seemed rather clear on the point; and yet, perhaps, there was misunderstanding on both sides. At all events, they were cocksure the worst act a man could do was going too near a Hindu temple. Restrictions as to approaching the person or even the dwelling of a high caste man, or a Hindu temple, in Malabar are very strictly observed, and under these unwritten rules no Muppan is ever allowed nearer to a Hindu temple than ten yards from the outer wall which encloses the temple grounds. Should a man happen to trespass against this rule, snakes are sent to annoy him,—to punish him.

We now come to ôḍikal. Oddly enough its existence became known for the first time about fifteen years ago, through a case which was eventually tried in the usual way in our courts, and this case arose out of the unprecedented circumstance of a Muppan having learned to write. He was the first and only Muppan who had ever learned