Valangai.--Valangai, Valangan, Valangamattan, or Balagai, meaning those who belong to the right-hand faction, has, at times of census, been returned as a sub-division, synonym or title of Deva-dasis, Holeyas, Nokkans, Panisavans, Paraiyans, and Saliyans. Some Deva-dasis have returned themselves as belonging to the left-hand (idangai) faction. Valayakara Chetti.--A Tamil synonym of Gazula Balijas who sell glass bangles. The equivalent Vala Chetti is also recorded. Valekara.--A Badaga form of Billekara or belted peon. The word frequently occurs in Badaga ballads. Taluk peons on the Nilgiris are called Valekaras. Vali Sugriva.--A synonym of the Lambadis, who claim descent from Vali and Sugriva, the two monkey chiefs of the Ramayana. Valinchiyan.--See Velakkattalavan. Valiyatan (valiya, great, tan, a title of dignity).--Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, 1901, as a title of Nayar. Vallabarayan.--A title of Occhan. Vallamban.--The Vallambans are a small Tamil cultivating class living in the Tanjore, Trichinopoly, and Madura districts. They are said [100] to be "the offspring of a Vellalan and a Valaiya woman, now a small and insignificant caste of cultivators. Some of them assert that their ancestors were the lords of the soil, for whose sole benefit the Vellalans used to carry on cultivation. Tradition makes the Vellambans to have joined the Kallans in attacking and driving away the Vellalans. It is customary among the Vallambans, when demising land, to refer to the fact of their being descendants of the Vallambans who lost Vallam, i.e., the Vallama nadu in Tanjore, their proper country." Some Vallambans claim to be flesh-eating Vellalas, or to be superior to Kallans and Maravans by reason of their Vellala ancestry. They call themselves Vallamtotta Vellalas, or the Vellalas who lost Vallam, and say that they were Vellalas of Vallam in the Tanjore district, who left their native place in a time of famine. Portions of the Madura and Tanjore districts are divided into areas known as nadus, in each of which a certain caste, called the Nattar, is the predominant factor. For example, the Vallambans and Kallans are called the Nattars of the Palaya nadu in the Sivaganga zemindari of the Madura district. In dealing with the tribal affairs of the various castes inhabiting a particular nadu, the lead is taken by the Nattars, by whom certain privileges are enjoyed, as for example in the distribution to them, after the Brahman and zamindar, of the flowers and sacred ashes used in temple worship. For the purposes of caste council meetings the Vallambans collect together representatives from fourteen nadus, as they consider that the council should be composed of delegates from a head village and its branches, generally thirteen in number.