Page:Tamil studies.djvu/118

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THE TAMIL CASTES
91

preserved in the Kuricchan's (a hill tribe in Malabar, corresponding to the Kuravas of the Tamil country) custom of plastering their huts with cow-dung to remove the pollution caused by the entrance of a Brahman. During the past three centuries the Jesuit and other Missionaries on the one hand, and the Siddhar School of Tamil philosophers on the other, we are glad to observe, have been working to elevate these classes and alleviate the evils arising out of their social degradation, which has rendered their position anything but happy.