Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/435

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379
SHOLAGA

Karany has those of the Shanbogue. He keeps the accounts of the trees, and the coir (cocoanut fibre) in the islands, and makes out and delivers the accounts of coir brought to the coast."

Shikāri.— Shikāri, meaning a sportsman or hunter, occurs as a synonym of Irula, and a sub-division of Korava. The name shikāri is also applied to a Native who " accompanies European sportsmen as a guide and aid, and to the European sportsman himself." *[1]

Shōlaga.— In his account of the Shōlagas or Sōlagas, early in the last century, Buchanan †[2] writes that they "speak a bad or old dialect of the Karnāta language, have scarcely any clothing, and sleep round a fire, lying on a few plantain leaves, and covering themselves with others. They live chiefly on the summits of mountains, where the tigers do not frequent, but where their naked bodies are exposed to a disagreeable cold. Their huts are most wretched, and consist of bamboos with both ends stuck into the ground, so as to form an arch, which is covered with plantain leaves." The up-to-date Shōlaga, who inhabits the jungles of Coimbatore between Dimbhum and Kollegal near the Mysore frontier, is clad in a cotton loin-cloth, supplemented by a coat of English pattern with regimental buttons, and smears himself freely on special occasions, such as a visit to the Government anthropologist, with sacred ashes in mimiciy of the Lingāyats.

I gather from a correspondent that the following tradition concerning their origin is current. In days of yore there lived two brothers in the Geddesala hills, by name Kārayan and Billaya or Mādhēswara. The Uralis and Shōlagas are descended from Kārayan, and the

  1. * Yule and Burnell. Hobson-Jobson.
  2. † Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, 1807.