they were regarded as slaves and given from time to time certain privileges since the twelfth century A. D.[1]
(4) In Kerala (Malabar and Travancore), a country first colonized largely by the Tamils, a country where caste rules and observances have been scrupulously maintained for several centuries, the Kammalas occupy a low position in the social scale and are regarded by the other people of that district (probably on the authority of the Vaikhanasa Dharmasura) as a polluting caste like the Tamil Kainmalas of the eleventh century. They are allowed neither to wear the sacred thread as in the other parts of the Presidency, nor to enter the houses of castemen, except during construction, which when completed undergo purification, a custom still followed in the Tamil districts. As late as the fourteenth century the Kammalas and the Vaniyans (oil-pressers) were considered as slaves in Malabar. This we learn from the Kottayam plates of Viraraghava Chakravarti wherein it is stated thus :
வாணியரும் ஐங்கம்மாளரையு மடிமை கொடுத்தோம்.
(We have given the Vaniyas and the five Kammalas as slaves.)
The Kammalas of Malabar and of the Tamil districts must have descended from the same stock of the Naga-Dravidian artisans mentioned in the early Tamil literature and inscriptions already referred to, though, on account of difference in circumstances which will be explained hereafter, the former have
- ↑ South Indian. Inscriptions, Vol. III, p. 47.
