have each their own. 'Vaniyan' is another form of 'Vanijyan’ which means a 'merchant.'
All the hill and forest tribes of the present day, do not belong to the Negrito race alluded to in Group I. Some of them like the Kurumbas, the Malaiyalans and the Malayamans are emigrants from the plains. During the dynastic convulsions and terrible civil wars of the early Tamil period, several bands of the Naga tribes who were driven from the low lands took shelter on high mountains and in inaccessible forests, which had from the earliest times been under the rule of petty refractory chieftains called Kuru-nila-Mannar. Early Tamil literature tells us that there were feudatory chiefs on the Vengadam (Tirupati) hill, Kollimalais, Malainad, Tonrimalai, Kudirai-malai and Mudiram. Some of them are eulogized by ancient Tamil poets as the most benevolent of rulers; while of the seven third-rate[1] Vallals (வள்ளல்) or grantors of doceur some were hill chiefs. They had always been the allies of one or another of the three Tamil kings, like their remote monkey ancestors who had helped Sri Rama in his war with Ravana.
A study of the various sub castes returned during the Census of 1891 supplemented by the latest ethnological researches should lead one to the irresistible
- ↑ Three grades of donors are mentioned in Tamil literature. Those who give any present unasked belong to the first class; those who offer what is asked belong to the second class; and those who give grudgingly after much importunity belong to the hird class.
