Some Kanikars are engaged as coolies on planters' estates, or in felling timber and cutting bamboos for contractors, others in the manufacture of bows and arrows with blunt or barbed iron heads. Heated arrows are used by them, for hitting elephants which invade their sugar-cane or other crop, from the safe protection of a hut built on a platform of sticks in tall trees of branches or bamboo covered with leaves of Ochlandra Travancorica or other large leaves. In connection with these huts, which are called anamadam (elephant huts), it has been said that "the hills abound with game. 'Bison' (Bos gaurus), bears, and sambar (Cervus unicolor) are frequently met with, while elephants and tigers are so numerous that the Kanikars are in some parts compelled to build their houses high up in trees. These primitive houses are quickly and easily constructed. The walls are made of bamboo, and the roof is thatched with jungle leaves. They are generally built about fifty feet above the ground, and are securely fastened to the branches of a substantial tree, and a crude ladder of bamboo connects them with the ground. When all the inmates are safely housed for the night, the ladder is removed aloft out of the reach of elephants, who, mischievously inclined, might remove the obstruction, and leave the Kanikars to regain terra firma the best way they could." Sometimes a single bamboo, with the shoots on the sides cut short, does duty for a ladder. It has been said that, when the crops are ripening, the Kanikar watchmen are always at home in their arboreal houses, with their bows and arrows, and chanting their wild songs. Sometimes the blunt end of an arrow is used as a twirling stick in making fire by friction, for which purpose sticks made of Grewia tilioefolia, etc., are also used. In making fire, the Kanikars "procure two pieces of wood, one of which is soft, and contains a small hole or hollow about half an inch deep to receive the end of the other, which is a hard round stick about eighteen inches long, and as thick as an ordinary ruler. The Kanikar takes this stick between the palms of his hands, keeping it in a vertical position, with the end of it in the hollow referred to, and produces a quick rotary and reverse motion, and with slight pressure causes the friction necessary to produce a quantity of fluff, which soon ignites."