Note 7 — B

Seven miles west of Coonoor is a village named Athikārihatti, or village of the Athikāri or Adhikāri section of the Badagas. “The story goes that these people, under a leader named Karibetta Rāya, came from Sarigūr in Mysore territory, and settled first at Nelliturai (a short distance south-west of Mēttupālaiyam) and afterwards at Tūdūr (on the plateau west of Kulakambi) and Tadasimarahatti (to the north-west of Mēlūr), and that it was they who erected the sculptured cromlechs of Tūdūr and Mēlūr. Tūdūr and Tadasimarahatti are now both deserted; but in the former a cattle kraal, an old shrine, and a pit for fire-walking may still be seen, and in the latter another kraal, and one of the raised stone platforms called mandaikallu by the Badagas. Tradition says that the Badagas left these places and founded Athikārihatti and its hamlets instead, because the Kurumbas round about continually troubled them with their magic arts, and indeed killed by sorcery several of their most prominent citizens.”7