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They range all along the coast from Ceylon to Goa, and go in parties of four or five paraos or boats together, in each of which are fifty or sixty men, who immediately board every vessel they come up with, doing much harm on that coast, and every year take many foists and barks belonging to the Portuguese. Besides the nairs, many of the people in these paraos are Moors.
The nairs answered, that they knew I was a person who had wrought miracles; but as I could speak the language of the Portuguese, it was to be feared that I might betray their secrets to the enemy, and give them notice of the navy and army which had been prepared at Calicut against them, and therefore they strictly enjoined the pilot to carry us no farther.
Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 80-81, 311-312. Hartland, Primitive Paternity, Vol. I, pp. 269, 288. Now, if we regard these customs in the light of what has already been established, it is clear that they cannot be regarded as the first stage in the maternal family. Such a view is entirely to mistake the facts. The Naïrs are in no respect a people of primitive culture.
The attempt to carry off these bulky articles was the cause of their destruction, as one of their slaves gave notice to the zamorin or king of Calicut of what was going on. The zamorin would not at first believe the information, having conceived a good opinion of their fidelity, yet sent four of his nairs to examine into the truth of the information.
He has a great number of gentlemen, some of whom are called Amochi and others Nairs. These two sorts of men do not value their lives in any thing which tends to the honour of their king, and will run freely into any danger in his service, even if sure to lose their lives in the attempt. These men go naked from the waist upwards, and barefooted, having only a cloth wrapped about their thighs.
At any rate I find it absent in the communal clan grouped around the mothers, where the enlarged family makes common cause and life is lived by all for and with each other. An instructive example of the joint maternal family is furnished by the Naïrs of Malabar, where we see a very late development of the clan system.
The factor wrote to the Captain-Major, warning him of the treachery intended, and a message was conveyed to the King intimating that Vasco da Gama would not come until proper hostages were delivered up. Three nairs were accordingly sent to the factory, one of whom the Castilian pointed out as the King's nephew, and advised that he especially should be strictly watched.
When we remember the supremacy in properly and descent which women held in Egypt, and then read this tale, it seems that it belongs to the close of a social system like that of the Nairs, in which the lady makes her selection with variations from time to time.
They asked me to show them a certain Christian, much taller and stronger than any of the others, who used every day to slay about twenty of the Mahometans, and who at one time, when assailed by fifty of the nairs, escaped unhurt.
It is, in fact, the wife who possesses, and it is through her that wealth is transmitted. But among the Naïrs the man as husband and father cannot be said to exist; he is reduced to the most subordinate rôle of the male he is simply the progenitor. I know of no stronger case than this of the degraded position of the father.
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