Harkness, Henry: A description of a singular aboriginal race inhabiting the summit of the Neilgherry Hills, or Blue Mountains of Coimbatoor, in the Southern Peninsula of India (London, 1832)

FUGITIVE TRIBES. 109

even often becomes a serious inconvenience to the whole.
In this state were the Burghers on their first arrival.
They had left behind them all their mechanics, barbers,
washermen, &c. &c.; and to remedy this inconvenience,
and at the same time to insure the good neighbourhood
of the Cohatars and the Curumbars, they were glad to
enter into a compact with each for the performance of
these services; agreeing to pay them certain dues or fees,
and for their holding certain offices, in right of which
also were to accrue to them other specified advantages *.
The intelligence that the first of the fugitives had
found a comfortable house on the mountains, brought
many in a short time from the same part of the country.
The Toriahs, a lower class of people who had principally
gained their livelihood by weaving a kind of sackcloth ;
the Kanakars, and the Arrvas, or repudiated Brahmans ;
the Wodiars and the Lingavants, all of whom were of
superior classes to the first settlers,—gradually left the
plains, and established themselves in their new country.

* Each Burgher community now pays to the Cohatars of its circle,
at the rate of eighty measures for each plough of land ; to the Curumbar
family with which it is connected, eight measures of barley, besides the
incidental fees on a death, funeral, &c. In return for this payment, the
several services before mentioned are performed by the Cohatars and
the Curumbars. Tbe Curumbars are also residuary legatees to the
Burghers; and should one of the latter die without an heir, the whole
of whatever personal property he may have, the expenses of his funeral
being first paid, goes to the Curumbars.