[1754.—"Niadde and Pullie are two low castes on the Malabar coast...."—Ives, 26.
[1766.—"... Poolighees, a cast hardly suffered to breathe the common air, being driven into the forrests and mountains out of the commerce of mankind...."—Grose, 2nd ed. ii. 161 seq.]
1770.—"Their degradation is still more complete on the Malabar coast, which has not been subdued by the Mogul, and where they (the pariahs) are called Pouliats."—Raynal, E.T. 1798, i. 6.
1865.—"Further south in India we find polyandry among ... Poleres of Malabar."—McLennan, Primitive Marriage, 179.
POLIGAR, s. This term is peculiar to the Madras Presidency. The persons so called were properly subordinate feudal chiefs, occupying tracts more or less wild, and generally of predatory habits in former days; they are now much the same as [Zemindars] in the highest use of that term (q.v.). The word is Tam. pāḷaiyakkāran, 'the holder of a pālaiyam,' or feudal estate; Tel. paḷegāḍu; and thence Mahr. pālegār; the English form being no doubt taken from one of the two latter. The southern Poligars gave much trouble about 100 years ago, and the "Poligar wars" were somewhat serious affairs. In various assaults on Pānjālamkurichi, one of their forts in Tinnevelly, between 1799 and 1801 there fell 15 British officers. Much regarding the Poligārs of the south will be found in Nelson's Madura, and in Bishop Caldwell's very interesting History of Tinnevelly. Most of the quotations apply to those southern districts. But the term was used north to the Mahratta boundary.
1681.—"They pulled down the Polegar's houses, who being conscious of his guilt, had fled and hid himself."—Wheeler, i. 118.
1701.—"Le lendemain je me rendis à Tailur, c'est une petite ville qui appartient à un autre Paleagaren."—Lett. Edif. x. 269.
1745.—"J'espère que Votre Eminence agréera l'établissement d'une nouvelle Mission près des Montagnes appellées vulgairement des Palleagares, où aucun Missionnaire n'avait paru jusqu'à présent. Cette contrée est soumise à divers petits Rois appellés également Palleagars, qui sont independans du Grand Mogul quoique placés presque au milieu de son Empire."—Norbert, Mem. ii. 406-7.
1754.—"A Polygar ... undertook to conduct them through defiles and passes known to very few except himself."—Orme, i. 373.
1780.—"He (Hyder) now moved towards the pass of Changana, and encamped upon his side of it, and sent ten thousand polygàrs to clear away the pass, and make a road sufficient to enable his artillery and stores to pass through."—Hon. James Lindsay, in Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 233.