Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Karimpālan

by Edgar Thurston

Karimpālan.— The Karimpālans are a small hunting and cultivating forest tribe in Malabar. They are "punam (shifting) cultivators, hewers of wood, and collectors of wild pepper, and are found in all the foot hills north of the Camel's Hump. They wear the kudumi (hair knot), and are said to follow the marumakkatāyam system of inheritance in the female line, but they do not perform the tāli kettu ceremony. They are supposed to have the power of exorcising the demon Karuvilli, possession by whom takes the form of fever." *^[1]

1. * Gazetteer of the Malabar district.