Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/227

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197
KUTTADI

found that the gangrenous leg, as the result of a struggle whilst chloroform was being administered, had become separated at the knee-joint, and had fallen on floor; or, to put it tersely, the man had kicked his leg off."

In connection with the Tamil proverb "This is the law of my caste, and this is the law of my belly," the Rev. H. Jensen notes*[1] that "potters are never Vaishnavas; but potters at Srirangam were compelled by the Vaishnava Brāhmans to put the Vaishnava mark on their foreheads; otherwise the Brāhmans would not buy their pots for the temple. One clever potter, having considered the difficulty, after making the Saivite symbol on his forehead, put a big Vaishnava mark on his stomach. When rebuked for so doing by a Brāhman, he replied as above." The proverb " Does the dog that breaks the pots understand how difficult it is to pile them up? "is said by Jensen to have reference to the pots which are piled up at the potter's house. A variant is " What is many days' work for the potter is but a few moment's work for him who breaks the pots."

In the Madura district, the Kusavans have Vēlan as a title.

The insigne of the Kusavans, recorded at Conjeeveram, is a potter's wheel. †[2]

Kutikkar. — A name for Dāsis in Travancore.

Kutraki (wild goat). — An exogamous sept of Jātapu.

Kūttādi.——Described, in the Census Report, 1901, as an occupational name, meaning a rope-dancer, applied to Dommaras, Paraiyans, or Koravas. Ārya

  1. • Classified Collection of Tamil Proverbs, 1897.
  2. † J. S. F. Mackenzie. Ind. Ant., IV, 1875.