The Paraiyas of Malabar and Cochin are celebrated for their knowledge of black magic, and are consulted in matters relating to theft, demoniacal influence, and the killing of enemies. Whenever anything is stolen, the Paraiya magician is consulted. Giving hopes of the recovery of the stolen article, he receives from his client some paddy (rice) and a few panams (money), with which he purchases plantain fruits, a cocoanut or two, toddy, camphor, frankincense, and rice flour. After bathing, he offers these to his favourite deity Parakutti, who is represented by a stone placed in front of his hut. Rattling an iron instrument, and singing till his voice almost fails, he invokes the god. If the lost property does not turn up, he resorts to a more indignant and abusive form of invocation. If the thief has to be caught, his prayers are redoubled, and he becomes possessed, and blood passes out of his nose and mouth. When a person is ill, or under the influence of a demon, an astrologer and a magician named by the former are consulted. The magician, taking a cadjan (palm) leaf or copper or silver sheet, draws thereon cabalistic figures, and utters a mantram (prayer). Rolling up the leaf or sheet, he ties it to a thread, and it is worn round the neck in the case of a woman, and round the loins in the case of a man. Sometimes the magician, taking a thread, makes several knots in it, while reciting a mantram. The thread is worn round the neck or wrist. Or ashes are thrown over a sick person, and rubbed over the forehead and breast, while a mantram is repeated. Of mantrams, the following may be cited as examples. "Salutation to god with a thousand locks of matted hair, a thousand hands filling the three worlds and overflowing the same. Oh! Goddess mother, out of the supreme soul, descend. Oh! Sundara Yaksha (handsome she-devil), Swaha (an efficacious word)." "Salutation to god. He bears a lion on his head, or is in the form of a lion in the upper part of his body. In the mooladhara sits Garuda, the lord of birds, enemy of serpents, and vahana (vehicle) of Vishnu. He has Lakshmana to the left, Rama to the right, Hanuman in front, Ravana behind, and all around, above, below, everywhere he has Sri Narayana Swaha. Mayst thou watch over or protect me." The Paraiyans are notorious for the performance of marana kriyakal, or ceremonies for the killing of enemies. They resort to various methods, of which the following are examples:-- (1) Make an image in wax in the form of your enemy. Take it in your right hand, and your chain of beads in your left hand. Then burn the image with due rites, and it shall slay your enemy in a fortnight. (2) Take a human bone from a burial-ground, and recite over it a thousand times the following mantra:--"Oh, swine-faced goddess! seize him, seize him as a victim. Drink his blood; eat, eat his flesh. Oh, image of imminent death! Malayala Bhagavathi." The bone, thrown into the enemy's house, will cause his ruin.