Note 76 — P (Continued) (continued 2)

“The commencement of the Roman Catholic Mission in Tinnevelly,” Bishop Caldwell writes,76 “dates from 1532, when certain Paravas, representatives of the Paravas or fishing caste, visited Cochin for the purpose of supplicating the aid of the Portuguese against their Muhammadan oppressors, and were baptized there by Michael Vaz, Vicar-General of the Bishop of Goa. The same ecclesiastic, with other priests, accompanied the fleet which sailed for the purpose of chastising the Muhammadans, and, as soon as that object was accomplished, set about baptizing the Paravas all along the coast, in accordance with the agreement into which their representatives had entered. The entire Parava caste adopted the religion of their Portuguese deliverers and most of them received baptism. Some, however, did not receive baptism for some cause till Xavier’s time, ten years afterwards. Xavier, on his arrival in the south, could not speak Tamil, and spent some months in committing to memory Tamil translations of the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, Ave Maria, and Decalogue. He then proceeded to visit all the villages of the coast, bell in hand, to collect the inhabitants, and gave them Christian instruction. The Paravas thus christianised—called generally at that time the Comorin Christians—inhabited thirty villages, and numbered, according to the most credible account, twenty thousand souls. These villages extended all the way along the coast at irregular intervals from Cape Comorin to the island promontory of Rāmēsvaram, if not beyond. It does not appear that any village in the interior joined in the movement.” “It appears,” Mr. Casie Chitty states, “that the Portuguese treated the Paravas with great kindness, permitted intermarriages, and even allowed them to assume their surnames, so that we find among them many Da Limas, Da Cruzs, Da Andrados, Da Canhas, etc. They gave the chief of the Paravas the title of Dom, and allowed him the exclusive right of wearing a gold chain with a cross as a badge of nobility. [The name of a recent hereditary chief or Jāti Talaivan or Talaivamore of the Paravas was Gabriel de Cruz Lazarus Motha Vas.] As soon as the Dutch took possession of Tutocoryn (Tuticorin) and other adjacent towns where the Paravas are found, they employed Dr. Baldæus and a few other ministers of their persuasion to suppress the Roman Catholic faith, and to persuade the Paravas to adopt their own in its stead; but in this they met with a total failure, and were once very nearly bringing on a general revolt. Notwithstanding the intolerance of the Dutch with regard to the Romish Church, the Paravas still remember them with gratitude, as they afforded them the means of extensive livelihood by establishing in their principal town (Tutocoryn) a public manufactory of cloth, and thus maintaining a considerable working capital.”