Of these, the Puvaththukudi Chettis, who receive their name from a village in the Tanjore district, are mostly itinerant petty traders and money-lenders, who travel about the country. They carry on their shoulders a bag containing their personal effects, except when they are cooking and sleeping. I am informed that the Puvaththukudi women engage women, presumably with a flow of appropriate language ready for the occasion, to abuse those with whom they have a quarrel. Among the Puvaththukudi Chettis, marriages are, for reasons of economy, only celebrated at intervals of many years. Concerning this custom, a member of the community writes to me as follows. “In our village, marriages are performed only once in ten or fifteen years. My own marriage was celebrated in the year Nandana (1892–93). Then seventy or eighty marriages took place. Since that time, marriages have only taken place in the present year (1906). The god at Avadaiyar kōvil (temple) is our caste god. For marriages, we must receive from that temple garlands, sandal, and palanquins. We pay to the temple thirty-five rupees for every bridegroom through our Nagaraththar (village headmen). The expenses incurred in connection with the employment of washermen, barbers, nāgasaram (musical instrument) players, talayāris (watchmen), carpenters, potters, blacksmiths, gurukkals (priests), and garland-makers, are borne collectively and shared by the families in which marriages are to take place.” Another Chetti writes that this system of clubbing marriages together is practised at the villages of Puvaththukudi and Mannagudi, and that the marriages of all girls of about seven years of age and upwards are celebrated. The marriages are performed in batches, and the marriage season lasts over several months.

Palayasengadam in the Trichinopoly district is the head-quarters of a section of the Chettis called the Pannirendām (twelfth) Chettis. “These are supposed to be descended from eleven youths who escaped long ago from Kāvēripatnam, a ruined city in Tanjore. A Chōla king, says the legend, wanted to marry a Chetti; whereupon the caste set fire to the town, and only these eleven boys escaped. They rested on the Ratnagiri hill to divide their property; but however they arranged it, it always divided itself into twelve shares instead of eleven. The god of Ratnagiri then appeared, and asked them to give him one share in exchange for a part of his car. They did so, and they now call themselves the twelfth Chettis from the number of the shares, and at their marriages they carry the bridegroom round in a car. They are said to be common in Coimbatore district.”[41]

At the census, 1871, some of the less fortunate traders returned themselves as “bankrupt Chettis.”

The following castes and tribes are recorded as having assumed the title Chetti, or its equivalent Setti:—

Of proverbs relating to Chettis,[42] the following may be quoted:—

He who thinks before he acts is a Chetti, but he who acts without thinking is a fool.

When the Chetti dies, his affairs will become public.

She keeps house like a merchant caste woman, i.e., economically.