Note 19 — P (Continued)

In reply to a question by the Census Superintendent, 1891, as to the names of the sub-divisions of the caste, it was stated that “the Vanniyans are either of the solar and lunar or Agnikula race, or Ruthra Vanniyar, Krishna Vanniyar, Samboo Vanniyar, Brahma Vanniyar, and Indra Vanniyar.” The most important of the sub-divisions returned at the census were Agamudaiyan, Agni, Arasu (Rāja), Kshatriya, Nāgavadam (cobra’s hood, or ear ornament of that shape), Nattamān, Ōlai (palm leaf), Pandamuttu, and Perumāl gōtra. Pandamuttu is made by Winslow to mean torches arranged so as to represent an elephant. But the Pallis derive the name from panda muttu, or touching the pandal, in reference to the pile of marriage pots reaching to the top of the pandal. The lowest pot is decorated with figures of elephants and horses. At a marriage among the Pandamuttu Pallis, the bride and bridegroom, in token of their Kshatriya descent, are seated on a raised dais, which represents a simhāsanam or throne. The bride wears a necklace of glass beads with the tāli, and the officiating priest is a Telugu Brāhman. Other sub-castes of the Pallis, recorded in the Census Report, 1901, are Kallangi in Chingleput, bearing the title Reddi, and Kallavēli, or Kallan’s fence, in the Madura district. The occupational title Kottan (bricklayer) was returned by some Pallis in Coimbatore. In the Salem district some Pallis are divided into Anju-nāl (five days) and Pannendū-nāl (twelve days), according as they perform the final death ceremonies on the fifth or twelfth day after death, to distinguish them from those who perform them on the sixteenth day.19 Another division of Pallis in the Salem district is based on the kind of ear ornament which is worn. The Ōlai Pallis wear a circular ornament (ōlai), and the Nāgavadam Pallis wear an ornament in shape like a cobra and called nāgavadam.