Tirumudi (holy knot).--Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as "bricklayers, whose women are usually prostitutes; found chiefly in Salem and Coimbatore. They are either Vettuvans or Kaikolans. Kaikolan women, when they are dedicated to the temple, are supposed to be united in wedlock with the deity. Tiruvalluvan.--A sub-division of Valluvan. Tiruvalluvar, the author of the Kural, is said to have belonged to the Valluva caste. Tiru-vilakku-nagarattar (dwellers in the city of holy lamps).--A name assumed by Vaniyans (oil-pressers). Tiyadi.--A synonym of the Tiyattunni section of Ambalavasis (see Unni). Tiyan.--The Tiyans, and Izhuvans or Iluvans, are the Malayalam toddy-drawing castes of Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore. The following note, except where otherwise indicated, is taken from an account of the Tiyans of Malabar by Mr. F. Fawcett. The Tiyans in Malabar number, according to the census returns, 512,063, or 19·3 per cent. of the total population. The corresponding figures for the Izhuvans are 101,638, or 3·8 per cent. The Tiyans have been summed up [16] as the middle class of the west coast, who cultivate the ground, take service as domestics, and follow trades and professions--anything but soldiering, of which they have an utter abhorrence. The marumakkatayam system (inheritance through the female line), which obtains in North Malabar, has favoured temporary connections between European men and Tiyan women, the children belonging to the mother's tarvad. Children bred under these conditions, European influence continuing, are often as fair as Europeans. It is recorded, in the Report of the Malabar Marriage Commission, 1894, that "in the early days of British rule, the Tiyan women incurred no social disgrace by consorting with Europeans, and, up to the last generation, if the Sudra girl could boast of her Brahman lover, the Tiyan girl could show more substantial benefits from her alliance with a white man of the ruling race. Happily, the progress of education, and the growth of a wholesome public opinion, have made shameful the position of a European's concubine; and both races have thus been saved from a mode of life equally demoralising to each." On this point, Mr. L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer writes as follows. [17] "It is true that there is an elevation both physically and mentally in the progeny of such a parentage. On making enquiries about this, I learn from a respectable and educated Tiyan gentleman that this union is looked upon with contempt by the respectable class of people, and by the orthodox community. I am further informed that such women and children, with their families, are under a ban, and that respectable Tiya gentlemen who have married the daughters of European parentage are not allowed to enjoy the privileges of the caste. There are, I hear, several such instances in Calicut, Tellicherry, and Cannanore. Women of respectable families do not enter into such connection with Europeans."