Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/514

---

meat, living on the produce of their herds and the grains paid to them as the lords of the soil by another class called Badagas or Burghers. It has been a matter of much curiosity, among those interested in the origin of the Hindu races, to ascertain the language and religion of this apparently aboriginal tribe. Their language is evidently a form of the primitive stock from which the old Tamil and Canarese were drawn, and not at all based on the Sanscrit. Many of their words are Tamil words, pronounced with a deep pectoral enunciation. This would tend to show that the Tamil and Canarese races, allied to one another, dwelt in Southern India before the Brahmins introduced Sanscrit, and that these mountaineers are a part of the same race, who, separated from contact with the modern Hindu nations, have retained the ancient language of the land. This is still further shown by the interesting fact that they know nothing whatever of the Brahminic religion, now spread all over India. Of the great Hindu triad, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, they know nothing; nor of Ganesha, Kali, Lachmy, and the thousand other gods of the modern Hindus. Nor have they idols as objects of worship. They offer some slight homage to