Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/42

34 days, the man who inflicted the injuries shall pay 70 pons, or 157½ rupees; in the case of a woman, the fine is exactly half. But if death takes place after the period named, it is understood that the cause thereof was some other than the wounds, and there the matter ends. This kind of compromise, once the rule, is dying out.

The East-country Kullens are recognisable easily by their heavy ear-rings, which drag down the ear-lobes to as much as two inches, or even more sometimes. This kind of deformation of the ear is common in South India, but I have never seen it among men, the East-country Kullens excepted. The dragged-out, attenuated ear-lobes are often torn in anger.

The use of a kind of bomerang is peculiar to the Eastern Kullens. "Crooked stick" they call it. It does not revert to the thrower. A practised hand can cut down a plantain-tree twenty to thirty yards off with it. It is used for knocking over small game, by breaking the legs, usually. Throwing-sticks are not uncommon, but only among the Kullens do they take the shape of the bomerang. In Mysore, a corkscrew-shaped stick about the length of a walking-stick is used by the hunter-caste community. As it revolves, the ends strike the ground, the curves strike the animal, which would be untouched were the stick straight.

The Eastern Kullens have a way of hunting the wild boar which deserves mention, as it is quite unique. A wide semicircle is formed of men standing in pairs, at intervals, and the animals are driven towards them. One man holds a spear, the large head of which is set at a small angle from the line of the shaft. His comrade holds a short stabbing-spear. The driven boar, the most dangerous and fiercest animal of the Indian jungles, charges straight at the first pair he sees. The two men stand perfectly still, and the boar's neck is received on the bent spear. The boar jerks its head up, burying the spear (here the bend comes in) to the flange. The second