Page:Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture.djvu/57

 'Hard-eyed hunters fix closely woven nets on the thorns of the hedges of fields in Pālaī land and drive into them rabbits which have long ears like the outer petals of the thorny-stalked lotus, they then proceed along with dogs whose jaws are wide-open, beat the shrubs and hunt the rabbit and eat them'.

Trials of strength by wrestling was also a common amusement among the Tamils; the following is a description of maṛpor, wrestling :—

In Āmūr which produces sweet and strong liquor he overcame the great strength of the wrestler; he bent one of his knees and planted it on his adversary's chest; with the other leg he defeated the tactics, bent the back of his rival; as an elephant which tries to eat a bamboo, he hammered his rival's head and feet and conquered him: may Tittan the heroic father of the wrestler see the sight, whether it would please him or not.

Walking was the only means of transport in nomad times. Modern anthropological opinion is coming round to the view that the Stone Age man was a great wanderer from the earliest times and that there was much intercourse between Asia and Africa on the one hand, and Europe and even America on the other, if not as much as there is in these days of the steam engine. The primitive nomad, hide-clad or skyclad, shouldered his tools and walked from country to country and spread the different stages of palæolithic culture all over the world. The motive for this travel was perhaps quest for food and the necessity for avoiding climatic rigour; or perhaps it was merely due to wanderlust and to the non-development of house building and of the habit of storing wealth, and living in one place to guard it from enemies. With the building of permanent habitations and the development of a love of luxury man began to make vehicles. The earliest kind of vehicle was the cart, vaṇḍil also called ''ūrdi, oḻugai, śagaḍu , śāḍu, vaiyam. Vaṇḍil now shortened into vaṇḍi literally means the bent place, from root of vaḷ to bend, whence vaḷai'' to surround, to besiege,