Mantalāyi.—Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, 1901, as a sub-division of Nāyar.

Māppilla.—The Māppillas, or Moplahs, are defined in the Census Report, 1871, as the hybrid Mahomedan race of the western coast, whose numbers are constantly being added to by conversion of the slave castes of Malabar. In 1881, the Census Superintendent wrote that “among some of them there may be a strain of Arab blood from some early generation, but the mothers throughout have been Dravidian, and the class has been maintained in number by wholesale adult conversion.” Concerning the origin of the Māppillas, Mr. Lewis Moore states[55] that “originally the descendants of Arab traders by the women of the country, they now form a powerful community. There appears to have been a large influx of Arab settlers into Malabar in the ninth century A.D. and the numbers have been constantly increased by proselytism. The Māppillas came prominently forward at the time of the Portuguese invasion at the end of the fifteenth century A.D.” “The Muhammadan Arabs,” Dr. Burnell writes,[56] “appear to have settled first in Malabar about the beginning of the ninth century; there were heathen Arabs there long before that in consequence of the immense trade conducted by the Sabeans with India.” “There are,” Mr. B. Govinda Nambiar writes,[57] “many accounts extant in Malabar concerning the introduction of the faith of Islām into this district. Tradition says that, in the ninth century of the Christian era, a party of Moslem pilgrims, on their way to a sacred shrine in Ceylon, chanced to visit the capital of the Perumāl or king of Malabar, that they were most hospitably entertained by that prince, and that he, becoming a convert to their faith, subsequently accompanied them to Arabia (where he died). It is further stated that the Perumāl, becoming anxious of establishing his new faith in Malabar, with suitable places of worship, sent his followers with letters to all the chieftains whom he had appointed in his stead, requiring them to give land for mosques, and to endow them. The Perumāl’s instructions were carried out, and nine mosques were founded and endowed in various parts of Malabar. Whatever truth there may be in these accounts, it is certain that, at a very early period, the Arabs had settled for commercial purposes on the Malabar coast, had contracted alliances with the women of the country, and that the mixed race thus formed had begun to be known as the Māppillas. These Māppillas had, in the days of the Zamorin, played an important part in the political history of Malabar, and had in consequence obtained many valuable privileges. When Vasco da Gama visited Calicut during the closing years of the fifteenth century, we find their influence at court so powerful that the Portuguese could not obtain a commercial footing there. The numerical strength of the Māppillas was greatly increased by forcible conversions during the period when Tippu Sultan held sway over Malabar.” [At the installation of the Zamorin, some Māppilla families at Calicut have certain privileges; and a Māppilla woman, belonging to a certain family, presents the Zamorin with betel nuts near the Kallai bridge, on his return from a procession through the town.] According to one version of the story of the Perumāl, Chēramān Perumāl dreamt that the full moon appeared at Mecca on the night of the new moon, and that, when on the meridian, it split into two, one half remaining in the air, and the other half descending to the foot of a hill called Abu Kubais, where the two halves joined together. Shortly afterwards, a party of pilgrims, on their way to the foot-print shrine at Adam’s peak in Ceylon, landed in Chēramān Perumāl’s capital at Kodungallūr, and reported that by the same miracle, Muhammad had converted a number of unbelievers to his religion.

The cephalic index of the Māppillas is lower than that of the other Muhammadan classes in South India which I have examined, and this may probably be explained by their admixture with dolichocephalic Dravidians. The figures are as follows:—

Number examined.Cephalic index.
Māppilla4072.8
Sheik Muhammadan4075.6
Saiyad Muhammadan4075.6
Daira Muhammadan5075.6
Pathān Muhammadan4076.2

From the measurement of a very few Māppillas, members of the Hyderabad Contingent, and Marāthas, who went to England for the Coronation in 1902, Mr. J. Gray arrived at the conclusion that “the people on the west coast and in the centre of the Deccan, namely the Moplas, Maharattas, and Hyderabad Contingent, differ considerably from the Tamils of the east coast. Their heads are considerably shorter. This points to admixture of the Dravidians with some Mongolian element. There is a tradition that the Moplas are descended from Arab traders, but the measurements indicate that the immigrants were Turkish, or of some other Mongolian element, probably from Persia or Baluchistan.”[58]

The cephalic indices, as recorded by Mr. Gray, were:—

Number examined.Cephalic index.
Tamils675.4
Moplas677.5
Hyderabad Contingent675
Maharattas779

The number of individuals examined is, however, too small for the purpose of generalisation.

In the Census Report, 1891, it is noted that some Māppillas have returned “Putiya Islām,” meaning new converts to Islām. These are mostly converts from the Mukkuvan or fisherman caste, and this process of conversion is still going on. Most of the fishermen of Tanūr, where there is an important fish-curing yard, are Mukkuvan converts. They are sleek and well-nourished, and, to judge from the swarm of children who followed me during my inspection of the yard, eminently fertile. One of them, indeed, was polygynous to the extent of seven wives, each of whom had presented him with seven sons, not to mention a large consignment of daughters. On the east coast the occurrence of twins is attributed by the fishermen to the stimulating properties of fish diet. In Malabar, great virtue is attributed to the sardine or nalla mathi (good fish, Clupea longiceps), as an article of dietary.

“Conversion to Muhammadanism,” Mr. Logan writes,[59] “has had a marked effect in freeing the slave caste in Malabar from their former burthens. By conversion a Cheruman obtains a distinct rise in the social scale, and, if he is in consequence bullied or beaten, the influence of the whole Muhammadan community comes to his aid.” The same applies to the Nayādis, of whom some have escaped from their degraded position by conversion to Islām. In the scale of pollution, the Nayādi holds the lowest place, and consequently labours under the greatest disadvantage, which is removed with his change of religion.