(reed instrument), and teaching Deva-dasis dancing. Another occupation, which is peculiar to the Tinnevelly Panisavans, is achu velai, i.e., the preparation of the comb to which the warp threads of a weaving loom are tied. Socially the Panisavans occupy a lowly position, but they use the title Pulavar. Their other titles are Pandaram, Pillai, and Mudali. Paniyan.--The Paniyans are a dark-skinned tribe, short in stature, with broad noses, and curly or wavy hair, inhabiting the Wynad, and those portions of the Ernad, Calicut, Kurumbranad and Kottayam taluks of Malabar, which skirt the base of the ghats, and the Mudanad, Cherangod, and Namblakod amshams of the Nilgiri district. A common belief, based on their general appearance, prevails among the European planting community that the Paniyans are of African origin, and descended from ancestors who were wrecked on the Malabar coast. This theory, however, breaks down on investigation. Of their origin nothing definite is known. The Nayar Janmis (landlords) say that, when surprised in the act of some mischief or alarmed, the Paniyan calls out 'Ippi'! 'Ippi'! as he runs away, and they believe this to have been the name of the country whence they came originally; but they are ignorant as to where Ippimala, as they call it, is situated. Kapiri (Africa or the Cape?) is also sometimes suggested as their original habitat, but only by those who have had the remarks of Europeans communicated to them. The Paniyan himself, though he occasionally puts forward one or other of the above places as the home of his forefathers, has no fixed tradition bearing on their arrival in Malabar, beyond one to the effect that they were brought from a far country, where they were found living by a Raja, who captured them, and carried them off in such a miserable condition that a man and his wife only possessed one cloth between them, and were so timid that it was only by means of hunting nets that they were captured. The number of Paniyans, returned at the census, 1891, was 33,282, and nine sub-divisions were registered; but, as Mr. H. A. Stuart, the Census Commissioner, observes:--"Most of these are not real, and none has been returned by any considerable number of persons." Their position is said to be very little removed from that of a slave, for every Paniyan is some landlord's 'man'; and, though he is, of course, free to leave his master, he is at once traced, and good care is taken that he does not get employment elsewhere.