Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/35

Rh have any written record, we must (rightly, I think) put down this legend to tolerably modern invention.

Now for the Kullens, the "savage Collieries" of Orme. Kullen, by the way, is the Tamil word for "thief".

The stock to which they belong is divided as follows: Kullen, Ahambadiyan, Vambi Maravan, Kothali Maravan, Konddya-Kothai Maravan, and these are again subdivided. These do not intermarry, nor do they eat together; yet they are brethren. "We are one," they say. Altogether they number about a million and a quarter. Deducting the Ahambadiyans (who are much more Hinduised than the others, and much less harmful), there are about three-quarters of a million of Kullens and Maravans; and these live almost entirely by plunder. By crime positively, and by blackmail negatively. They are notorious as the principal exponents of gang-robbery, cattle-lifting, and thieving generally, in the three southernmost districts, Trichinopoly, Madura, and Tinnevelly. Unlike other marauders of the Presidency, they choose bright moonlight for their exploits on the road, and will not hesitate to attack Europeans. A year ago or so they stopped and robbed a train almost within hail of the military cantonment, Trichinopoly.

The men who engage in these affairs are not always impelled thereto by the heavy hand of want. Far from it. Maravan and Kullen farmers, who possess cattle, land, and all-sufficience for comfortable maintenance, will, for the pure love of the thing, go off on an expedition, assist in half-a-dozen gang robberies, and return richer perhaps by a few rupees. Neglect of these noble pursuits involves forfeiture of all favour from the women—who, of course, are more conservative than the men; and the individual who, thinking the game not worth the candle, wishes to confine his energies to agriculture, is compelled to do mischief, much as the old Border chief, if he dallied long at home at ease, found his spurs served up for dinner by the ladies of his establishment. Deep delight in