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We were also interested in the Rodiyas, living in the outskirts, a people oppressed on account of a curse pronounced by a king many years ago, one of the conditions being the prohibition of clothes above the waist, both for men and women. The latter are noted for their beauty, and excel as singers and dancers, but they suffer under the stigma of immodesty for the reason given above.
Believe not that these miserable people represent the lowest grade of degradation in Lanka's isle, for there are two outcast races so far beneath them in the social scale as to be avoided by Rodiyas as if they reeked with a pestilential disease. These castes are hopelessly beyond the pale.
As no Singhalese will touch a dead body, the only people who will manufacture these ropes are the outcast Rodiyas, a party of whom stood at a distance from the crowd. These unfortunate people are the most degraded race in the country. Their very name means filth. They were compelled to go almost naked; to live under sheds, not being allowed to build a house with two walls.
Noosed ropes were in readiness; and far apart from all stood a party of the out-caste Rodiyas, the only tribe who will touch a dead carcase, to whom, therefore, the duty is assigned of preparing the fine flexible rope for noosing, which is made from the fresh hides of the deer and the buffalo.
The Rodiyas were called in to loose the ropes that bound him, from the tree, and two tame elephants being harnessed to the dead body, it was dragged to a distance without the corral. It is not, however, more mysterious than the unerring certainty and rapidity with which some of the minor animals, and more especially insects, in warm climates congregate around the offal on which they feed.
Suddenly he was quiet, and almost at the same moment his body was pounced on by innumerable crowds of black flies. "The rogue is dead," observed Mr Fordyce. Instantly two elephants entered with some of the outcast Rodiyas, who undid the cords from the tree, when the elephants dragged the dead body to a distance from the corral.
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