COLLERY, n.p. The name given to a non-Aryan race inhabiting part of the country east of Madura. Tam. kallaṛ, 'thieves.' They are called in Nelson's Madura, [Pt. ii. 44 seqq.] Kallans; Kallan being the singular, Kallar plural.
1763.—"The Polygar Tondiman ... likewise sent 3000 Colleries; these are a people who, under several petty chiefs, inhabit the woods between Trichinopoly and Cape Comorin; their name in their own language signifies Thieves, and justly describes their general character."—Orme, i. 208.
c. 1785.—"Colleries, inhabitants of the woods under the Government of the Tondiman."—Carraccioli, Life of Clive, iv. 561.
1790.—"The country of the Colleries ... extends from the sea coast to the confines of Madura, in a range of sixty miles by fifty-five."—Cal. Monthly Register or India Repository, i. 7.
COLLERY-HORN, s. This is a long brass horn of hideous sound, which is often used at native funerals in the Peninsula, and has come to be called, absurdly enough, Cholera-horn!
[1832.—"Toorree or Toorrtooree, commonly designated by Europeans collery horn, consists of three pieces fixed into one another, of a semi-circular shape."—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, ed. 1863, p. liv. App.]
1879.—"... an early start being necessary, a happy thought struck the Chief Commissioner, to have the Amildar's Cholera-horn men out at that hour to sound the reveillé, making the round of the camp."—Madras Mail, Oct. 7.
COLLERY-STICK, s. This is a kind of throwing-stick or boomerang used by the Colleries.
1801.—"It was he first taught me to throw the spear, and hurl the Collery-stick, a weapon scarcely known elsewhere, but in a skilful hand capable of being thrown to a certainty to any distance within 100 yards."—Welsh's Reminiscences, i. 130.
Nelson calls these weapons "Vallari Thadis or boomerangs."—Madura, Pt. ii. 44. [The proper form seems to be Tam. valai tādi, 'curved stick'; more usually Tam. kallardādi, tādi, 'stick.'] See also Sir Walter Elliot in J. Ethnol. Soc., N. S., i. 112, seq.