adopted the dress and ornaments of the Nāyars. Both sections wear the tuft of hair in front, but the Munnutilkar women do not tie the hair on the left side like the Nāyars and Anjuttilkars, but behind like the Pāndi Vellālas. Nor do the Anjuttilkar women wear a white dress like the Tenkanchis, but a coloured cloth, sixteen cubits in length, in orthodox Tamil fashion. Again, while the Tenkanchi women largely resort to the todu and other Nāyar ornaments, the Kumbakōnam women are more conservative, and wear only the pampadam and melidu, though they sometimes wear jewels, such as the nāgapata tāli for the neck. Both sections are Saivites, in the sense that they abstain from flesh and fish.
Their principal occupation is agriculture. They worship the two mountain deities Bhadrakāli and Durgā. In the Kirikkot muri of the Karikkod proverty there is a temple dedicated to Siva or Unnamalanathar, with a large amount of property attached to it. This belongs to the Tenkanchi Vellālas, and a Malayālam Brāhman performs the priestly functions. The Kumbakōnam Vellālas have their own temples, such as the Ankalamma koil, Annamala matam, Vīrabhadran koil, etc., and worship, besides the principal gods of the Hindu pantheon, such minor deities as Vīrabhadran, Karuppan, Bhairavan, Māriamman, and Muttaramman. The priests of both sections are East Coast Brāhmans, who live in the Todupuzha tāluk. As their profession is regarded by other Brāhmans as degrading, they, especially in the case of the Kumbakōnam Vellālas, perform their duties stealthily. The headman of the Kumbakōnam section lives in the Periyakulam tāluk of the Madura district, and, by his order, an image of Siva is worshipped at their homes.
