The people of Malabar are a thriving active race, the men well built and handsome, and the women remarkable for their beauty. The highest caste among the Hindus is that of the Namburi Brahmins, who claim all the land below the ghauts, and appear to have actually possessed a large portion of it previous to the invasion of Hyder Ali of Mysore. They declare that when Parasu Rama, one of the incarnations of Vishnu, hurled his axe from the mountains, the ocean receded, leaving the land of Kerala, as Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore were called; which he gave to the Namburi Brahmins. It is true that the undulating flat-topped hills, which cover the part of Malabar near Calicut, are like the waves of the sea, and appear as if the ocean in receding had forced channels, and thus formed the intervening valleys. The Namburis are fast dying out: they are landed proprietors, and perform such offices as bestowing holy water and ashes, or performing poojah or worship for the other Hindus, but never enter the public service.
The most important portion of the population is included in the eleven classes of Nairs,[390] a race of pure Sudra caste. They pretend to be born soldiers, and formed the armies of the Zamorin and Cochin Rajahs, the lower castes not being allowed to bear arms. The Nairs now hold most of the land in Malabar, and are frequently very rich. Both the Zamorin of Calicut and the Rajah of Cochin are Nairs; and the origin of their rule is said to have been as follows. About a thousand years ago, a Viceroy of the Sholum Rajah ruled over Malabar, named Cheruman Permal, who made himself independent, and divided the country among his nobles, of whom five were of the Kshatri caste, and seven were Nairs. After the division it was found that one of his bravest officers, the ancestor of the present Zamorin or Tamori Rajah, had been left out; Cheruman Permal, therefore, gave him his sword, and all the territory in which a cock crowing at a certain small temple could be heard. Hence Calicut, from Colicodu, a cock-crowing.[391] Down to the time of Tippoo the whole of Malabar was governed by the descendants of the sisters of these thirteen Nair chiefs. The Zamorin of Calicut has some influence, though he is much reduced in wealth and importance since the days of Vasco de Gama.
The Nairs live under the remarkable institution called murroo-muka-tayum. Sisters never leave their homes, but receive visits from male acquaintances, and the brothers go out to other houses, to their lady-loves, but live with their sisters. If a younger brother settles in a new house, he takes his favourite sister with him, and not the woman who, according to the custom in all other countries, should keep house for him. The man's mother manages the house, and after her death his eldest sister takes her place; but no man has any idea who his father is, and the children of his sisters are his heirs. Moveable property is divided amongst the children of the sisters of the deceased equally, and the land is managed by the eldest male of the family, but each individual has a right to a share in the income.
This strange custom gives the women an important position; and as they are pretty, and take pains with their personal appearance, their influence is very great. The Nairs are addicted to drink, and may eat venison, fowls, and fish; and the families are fond of gaiety, and of visiting among people of their own rank, when there is much talking and singing. Most of the men, as well as the women, read and write in their own character, and there is a Government Gazette printed in the Malayalim language. The Collector was anxious, also, to establish a paper in Malayalim, containing general information, which would no doubt have an excellent effect, but the difficulty is to find a good native editor.
Next in rank to the Nairs come the Tiars or Shanars, a stout, good-looking, hard-working race, who do not pretend to Sudra origin. Formerly the Nairs exacted deference from the Tiars with extreme cruelty and arrogance, treating them more like brutes than men; and if a Tiar defiled a Nair by touching him, he was instantly cut down. But British rule is gradually uprooting these caste barbarisms, and the position of the Tiars is improving. Some of them hold appointments as clerks in Government offices, and they are protected by just and equal laws. The Tiars form the mass of the field labourers; but the proper duty of their caste is to extract juice from the palm-tree, and either boil it into jaggery (unrefined sugar), or distil it. Their women are exceedingly pretty, with masses of long hair; but there is a prevalent custom for all the brothers of a family to have but one wife amongst them to save expense, which leads to most disastrous consequences. Below the Tiars there are several outcast tribes; among them the Churmas or slaves, a miserable and down-trodden race, possibly the remnant of the aboriginal inhabitants. Even now they are slow to understand that they are not slaves, and land on which there are most Churmas still sells at the highest price.
The Moplahs, or Mohammedans of Malabar, are descended from Arab mariners and traders by native women, and hence their name, from Mah-pilla "son of the mother." They have certainly been established in Malabar for a thousand years, if not more, as it is on record that the Viceroy Cheruman Permal, who then divided the country amongst his chiefs, was converted by a Moplah, and sailed for Mecca. All the sympathies of the Moplahs are with Arabia and the Red Sea, and they frequently undertake pilgrimages to Mecca. Respecting their creed they are fanatical, and are easily roused to fury by an insult, or an attempt on the part of the Nairs to treat them as a lower caste. On these occasions they run mucks; but in ordinary times they are hard-working, intelligent, abstemious, excellent boatmen, and capital backwoodsmen. Many of the Moplahs are very wealthy. Their mosques, however, are poor edifices, not to be distinguished from ordinary dwelling-houses, and the temples of the Hindus are no better. There is no attempt at ornamental architecture in the religious buildings of Malabar.
One-fifth of the collectorate of Malabar is taken up with rice and garden cultivation, the remaining four-fifths being covered with forest, or cleared for dry grains and coffee plantations. The land revenue, taking the average of five years ending in 1858-59, is 255,000l. The assessment of the rice-lands is essentially the same as that fixed by the Government of Tippoo Sultan of Mysore in 1783-84. Though unequal, and in some places burdensome, it is on the whole light, and, except in two of the Talooks,[392] it is lighter in the north than in the south. As an example of the inequality of the land-tax, I may mention that the district of Pattaumby, on the river Ponany, is very highly and unfairly assessed, as it is said, from the following cause. Before the invasion of Tippoo all the land in Malabar was in the hands of feudal chiefs; there was no land-tax, and the Zamorin and other Rajahs were supported by the produce of their own estates. The first ruler who imposed a land-tax was the Mysore conqueror. Any village which offended his officers was highly assessed; and hence the present inequalities, which will, however, be corrected by the new Survey and Assessment Commission. In the case of Pattaumby the accountant quarrelled with the landowners, and threatened to impose a heavy assessment, and, when they attempted to murder him, he escaped to Wynaad, and sent in his report to Tippoo.
All land in Malabar is private property, and the landlord gets 20 to 40 per cent. of the net rent, the remainder being the Government demand. From the gross produce of the rice-fields 20 per cent. is deducted for reaping and other small charges called puddum, the remainder being available gross rent. From the gross rent one-third is deducted as the expense of cultivation, called vitoo vally; one third as the cultivator's share, or koshoo labon, whether he be a jemakar or proprietor, a kanomkar or mortgagee, or a pattamkar or renter; and the remaining third is the pattom, net produce, or rent. Of this last third the Government share is 65 per cent., leaving 35 per cent. as the share of the proprietor. The Government share is thus a little less than a quarter of the gross produce.
The assessment is not calculated on the extent of land, but on the amount of seed required to sow a given space, according to the quality of the soil, which is divided into three classes, namely pasma (clay), rasee pasma (sand and clay), and rasee (sand). On an average the soil does not yield more than tenfold, and most of it bears only one crop. Some lands are sown in April or May, and the crops cut in August or September. These are chiefly in the coast Talooks. Others are sown in September and October, and the crops cut in January and February. The seeds are raised on small pieces of land, and the plants, when young, removed by hand, and planted in the paddy-fields.
The garden assessment, as it is called, on cocoanut-trees, the great wealth of Malabar, betel-palms, and jacks, was fixed in 1820.