Note 10 — C

Chāliyan.—The Chāliyans are a caste of Malayālam cotton weavers, concerning whom Mr. Francis writes as follows10:—“In dress and manners they resemble the artisan castes of Malabar, but, like the Pattar Brāhmans, they live in streets, which fact probably points to their being comparatively recent settlers from the east coast. They have their own barbers called Potuvāns, who are also their purōhits. They do not wear the sacred thread, as the Sālē weavers of the east coast do. They practise ancestor worship, but without the assistance of Brāhman priests. This is the only Malabar caste which has anything to do with the right and left-hand faction disputes, and both divisions are represented in it, the left hand being considered the superior. Apparently, therefore, it settled in Malabar some time after the beginnings of this dispute on the east coast, that is, after the eleventh century A. D. Some of them follow the marumakkatāyam and others the makkatāyam law of inheritance, which looks as if the former were earlier settlers than the latter.”