Note 55 — M (continued 3)

Māppilla.—The Māppillas, or Moplahs, are defined in the Census Report, 1871, as the hybrid Mahomedan race of the western coast, whose numbers are constantly being added to by conversion of the slave castes of Malabar. In 1881, the Census Superintendent wrote that “among some of them there may be a strain of Arab blood from some early generation, but the mothers throughout have been Dravidian, and the class has been maintained in number by wholesale adult conversion.” Concerning the origin of the Māppillas, Mr. Lewis Moore states55 that “originally the descendants of Arab traders by the women of the country, they now form a powerful community. There appears to have been a large influx of Arab settlers into Malabar in the ninth century A.D. and the numbers have been constantly increased by proselytism. The Māppillas came prominently forward at the time of the Portuguese invasion at the end of the fifteenth century A.D.” “The Muhammadan Arabs,” Dr. Burnell writes,56 “appear to have settled first in Malabar about the beginning of the ninth century; there were heathen Arabs there long before that in consequence of the immense trade conducted by the Sabeans with India.” “There are,” Mr. B. Govinda Nambiar writes,57 “many accounts extant in Malabar concerning the introduction of the faith of Islām into this district. Tradition says that, in the ninth century of the Christian era, a party of Moslem pilgrims, on their way to a sacred shrine in Ceylon, chanced to visit the capital of the Perumāl or king of Malabar, that they were most hospitably entertained by that prince, and that he, becoming a convert to their faith, subsequently accompanied them to Arabia (where he died). It is further stated that the Perumāl, becoming anxious of establishing his new faith in Malabar, with suitable places of worship, sent his followers with letters to all the chieftains whom he had appointed in his stead, requiring them to give land for mosques, and to endow them. The Perumāl’s instructions were carried out, and nine mosques were founded and endowed in various parts of Malabar. Whatever truth there may be in these accounts, it is certain that, at a very early period, the Arabs had settled for commercial purposes on the Malabar coast, had contracted alliances with the women of the country, and that the mixed race thus formed had begun to be known as the Māppillas. These Māppillas had, in the days of the Zamorin, played an important part in the political history of Malabar, and had in consequence obtained many valuable privileges. When Vasco da Gama visited Calicut during the closing years of the fifteenth century, we find their influence at court so powerful that the Portuguese could not obtain a commercial footing there. The numerical strength of the Māppillas was greatly increased by forcible conversions during the period when Tippu Sultan held sway over Malabar.” [At the installation of the Zamorin, some Māppilla families at Calicut have certain privileges; and a Māppilla woman, belonging to a certain family, presents the Zamorin with betel nuts near the Kallai bridge, on his return from a procession through the town.] According to one version of the story of the Perumāl, Chēramān Perumāl dreamt that the full moon appeared at Mecca on the night of the new moon, and that, when on the meridian, it split into two, one half remaining in the air, and the other half descending to the foot of a hill called Abu Kubais, where the two halves joined together. Shortly afterwards, a party of pilgrims, on their way to the foot-print shrine at Adam’s peak in Ceylon, landed in Chēramān Perumāl’s capital at Kodungallūr, and reported that by the same miracle, Muhammad had converted a number of unbelievers to his religion.