The person who was too lazy to weave went to the stars.
The Chetti (money-lender) decreases the money, and the weaver the thread.
The titles of the Kaikōlans are Mūdali and Nāyanar.
Among the Kaikōlan musicians, I have seen every gradation of colour and type, from leptorhine men with fair skin and chiselled features, to men very dark and platyrhine, with nasal index exceeding 90.
The Kaikōlans take part in the annual festival at Tirupati in honour of the goddess Gangamma. “It is,” Mr. Stuart writes,[26] “distinguished from the majority of similar festivals by a custom, which requires the people to appear in a different disguise (vēsham) every morning and evening. The Mātangi vēsham of Sunday morning deserves special mention. The devotee who consents to undergo this ceremony dances in front of an image or representation of the goddess, and, when he is worked up to the proper pitch of frenzy, a metal wire is passed through the middle of his tongue. It is believed that this operation causes no pain, or even bleeding, and the only remedy adopted is the chewing of a few margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves, and some kunkumam (red powder) of the goddess. This vēsham is undertaken only by a Kaikōlan (weaver), and is performed only in two places—the house of a certain Brāhman and the Mahant’s math. The concluding disguise is that known as the pērantālu vēsham. Pērantālu signifies the deceased married women of a family who have died before their husbands, or, more particularly, the most distinguished of such women. This vēsham is accordingly represented by a Kaikōlan disguised as a female, who rides round the town on a horse, and distributes to the respectable inhabitants of the place the kunkumam, saffron paste, and flowers of the goddess.”
For the following account of a ceremony, which took place at Conjeeveram in August, 1908, I am indebted to the Rev. J. H. Maclean. “On a small and very lightly built car, about eight feet high, and running on four little wheels, an image of Kāli was placed. It was then dragged by about thirty men, attached to it by cords passed through the flesh of their backs. I saw one of the young men two days later. Two cords had been drawn through his flesh, about twelve inches apart. The wounds were covered over with white stuff, said to be vibūthi (sacred ashes). The festival was organised by a class of weavers calling themselves Sankunram (Sengundar) Mudaliars, the inhabitants of seven streets in the part of Conjeeveram known as Pillaipalyam. The total amount spent is said to have been Rs. 500. The people were far from clear in their account of the meaning of the ceremony. One said it was a preventive of small-pox, but this view did not receive general support. Most said it was simply an old custom: what good it did they could not say. Thirty years had elapsed since the last festival. One man said that Kāli had given no commands on the subject, and that it was simply a device to make money circulate. The festival is called Pūntēr (flower car).”
In September, 1908, an official notification was issued in the Fort St. George Gazette to the following effect. “Whereas it appears that hook-swinging, dragging of cars by men harnessed to them by hooks which pierce their sides, and similar acts are performed during the Mariyamman festival at Samayapuram and other places in the Trichinopoly division, Trichinopoly district, and whereas such acts are dangerous to human life, the Governor in Council is pleased, under section 144, sub-section (5), of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, to direct that the order of the Sub-divisional Magistrate, dated the 7th August, 1908, prohibiting such acts, shall remain in force until further orders.”
It is noted by Mr. F. R. Hemingway[27] that, at Ratnagiri, in the Trichinopoly district, the Kaikōlans, in performance of a vow, thrust a spear through the muscles of the abdomen in honour of their god Sāhānayanar.
Kaila (measuring grain in the threshing-floor).—An exogamous sept of Māla.