Page:Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture.djvu/56

 ting measure, murugiyam, measure for veṛiyāṭṭam , Muruga nce, maṇamuḻavu , marriage drum, nellarikiṇai, harvest drum, , the drum beaten for dragging cars, , the drum announcing the king's or a god's going out of the kōil, mīnkōṭpaṛai , the drum beat announcing a haul of fish, śūṛaikōṭpaṛai , dacoity-drum. Different kinds of noises were also emitted from trumpets to suit various occasions, auspicious and inauspicious, marriage or death processions.

Dancing, āṭṭam, kūttu , was of various kinds. Almost every incident of life had its appropriate dance. Kūttu, kaḷi, kunippu, was a kind of dumb show, in which ideas were expressed by dancing and by elaborate gestures. This was the ancient form of the Tamil drama—the drama where the characters spoke or sang their parts belonged to North India—and is still kept up in Malabar under the name kathakaḷi. Kūttar, kaṇṇular , and kūttiyar were elaborately made up. The actresses were women of easy virtue for kūttiyar has come to mean harlots. Children's dances were kummi, teḷḷēṇam , sāḻal , ōrai , etc. Boys played a kind of primitive cricket, in which the bat and the ball were both represented by long and short sticks, kiṭṭu , puḷ.

Music was dispensed by wandering bards who were generally famished if they stuck to their homes.

'O Pāṇan, whose legs are tired by wandering from place to place like birds in search of fruits on hills which are covered by mist on the cessation of rain, because you have no one to support you in the world surrounded by the sea, and are surrounded by relatives crying for food, whose body is emaciated and whose mouth denounces the learning he has acquired'.

Angling was another amusement. The following is a description of angling:—

The expert angler of the pāṇar tribe carries on his shoulders a leather-bag full of bits of meat and sticks it at the end of a string tied to a long bamboo stick; the fish bites the meat hanging at the bent end of the angling-rod and shakes the string; missing it, the vāḷai fish stays with open mouth.'

Capturing game by means of nets was another favourite amusement.