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412 the name of another caste of pulm-cultivators found in the Tamil and Malayalam countries. The traditions current in Malabar represent them as immigrants from Ceylon, and in accordance thereto the words Tiyan and Izhuvan are derived by the old-school philologists of Malabar and their European supporters, like Drs. Caldwell and Gundert and Mr. Logan, from 'dvipam' (an island) and Simhalam (Ceylon). This etymology, though advocated by such high authorites and confirmed also by Malabar traditions, seems to be rather fanciful and devoid of any historical or ethnological foundation. It is needless to mention here the utter worthlessness of Keralolpatti and Keralamahatmya as historical records. For the purposes of ethnological investigations no reliance can be placed on either of these, because they are only later compositions of the Nambudri Brahmans of Malabar, who de facto had in their hands the destiny of the Chera kingdom. It is not the only instance in which the Malabar people have shown their primitive knowledge of the modern sciences of language and ethnology. 'Embran' is derived from hebrahman; 'Nambi' from nambu, to believe; 'Kuric'chan' from kuri, to mark, 'Variyar' from varuka to sweep and so on. Of course, these etymologies were supported by strange traditions, short or long, which the Nanbudri Brahmans were ever ready to invent. For these vagaries of etymology the language is responsible, not the people. The mother-tongue of the non-Aryan tribes. of Malabar was purely a Tamil dialect, and about fifty per cert, of the words found in the Malayalam vocabulary are of Tamil origin. As, however, Sanskrit had and even now have an undoubted preference in matters