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JULY, 1914.]
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA
137
But in the arrangement of such a marriage they ignored even the most ridiculous disparity of age. Not unoften a tender youth found himself the husband of a grown up woman,-a circumstance which necessarily gave currency to primitive ideas of female morality, and to the belief, characteristic of the caste, that a woman might, and indeed should, have, in case she did not desire disaster or unhappiness, marital relations with the father and other male relations of the husband.57 The same reason must be at the basis of the notion prevalent in the caste that a woman loses purity only when she chooses #lover of a different caste. The woman found guilty in this manner, however, was instantly put to death through the hands of the despised Chakkiliyan, Divorce among the Tóttiyans was easy and the remarriage of widows freely allowed; but the widow who did not avail herself of the permission and committed sati with her husband, was highly respected and even deified. The ladies of the Tóttiyan Polygars5 frequently committed sati on the death of their lords.
In religion the Tóttiyans were chiefly Vaishnavites.59 A reference to the Appendices will she v that when the Tóttiyan Polygars emigrated from the neighbourhood of Vijayanagar to the south, they carried with them the images of Ahôbila Narasinga Peruma!, Tirupat. Venkatáchalapati, and other Vaishnava deities Many curious legends are given in the MSS about these deities. The ancestor of the Kanniyâdi Appaiya Naiks, for example, we are told, neglected his tutelary god at first; but the deity managed to get into his notice, brought about an interview between him and the Pandyan king through the instrumentality of a vision, and finally secured for him a Palayam; and this of course led the gratified adventurer to build a temple to his divine benefactor. Wherever the Tóttiyans went, they built temples, sometimes of stone, but generally of brick or mud, and dedicated them either to Narasimha or Venkatâchalapati. They had also their own minor household deities, which were chiefly the manes of departed relations, satis, or vestal virgins. The patron deities of the caste, Jakkamma and Bommakka, were women who committed sati. "Small tombs called Tipanjam-kôvils were erected in their honour on the high roads, and at these oblations were offered once a year to the manes of the deceased heroines." Another deity, Virakaran, was derived from a bridegroom who was killed in a fight with a tiger. Pattalamma was the goddess who helped the tribe during their flight from the north. Malai Tamburan was the God of the Ancestors.
Closely connected with the Têttiyans were their domestio servants or Parivarams, who formed a separate caste. Some of them were called Chinna Oliyams or lesser servants, as they discharged the comparatively low kind of duties, such as palanquin-bearing The Periya Oliyams or Maniyakarans had more honorable duties to perform. In their marriage customs, in the easy allowance of divorce, in the toleration of the loose marriage tie within the caste, in the recognised right of the Polygar to enjoy their women at will, and in the severity of the punishment inflicted on those who went astray with men of other castes, they in every way resembled the Tóttiyans.no
87 Not unofton a family of several brothers had one wife,--a custom sanctioned by the tradition of the Pandavas. See Wilks I, p. 35; Thurston's Castes and Tribes; Madura Gas, etc. Madr. Manu. I, 282.
$of the various chronicles of the Appendix. 89 Nelson, p. 81; the Polygar Memoirs, etc.
% Soe Madu. Gagr. and Thurston's Castes. Excommunication was the punishment for immorality out side casto. A mud image of the offender was made and thrown away outsido the village as a sign of Bocial death.
