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Updated: June 5, 2025


They have here many palmers, or coco-nut trees, which is their chief food, as it yields both meat and drink, together with many other useful things, as I said formerly. The nairs belonging to the Samorin or king of Calicut, which are Malabars, are always at war with the Portuguese, though their sovereign be at peace with them; but his people go to sea to rob and plunder.

For a long time suppressed in China, polyandry, which flourishes in Thibet and Ceylon, is also met with among the Kalmonks, between Todas in Southern India, and Nairs on the coast of Malabar. Traces of this strange constitution of the family are also to be found with the Tasmanians and the Irquois Indians in North America.

The people here are Malabars, of the race of the Nairs of Calicut, who differ much from the other Malabars. These have their heads very full of hair, bound up with a string, above which is a great bush of hair. The men are tall and strong, and excellent archers, using a long bow and long arrows, which are their best weapons; yet they have some fire-arms among them, which they handle very badly.

Those who pass through such caves are considered to receive by this action a new birth of the soul. According to the same idea the rulers of Travancore, who are Nairs by caste, are made into Brahmins when they ascend the throne by passing through a hole in a large golden image of a cow or lotus flower, which then becomes the property of the Brahmin priests.

As they proceeded through a long street the crowd was so great, many among the people being Moors, with swords and shields, that it was with difficulty the Portuguese could make their way, until several nairs arrived and drove the rabble aside.

In arms, in arts, and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan; the husbandmen cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were enriched by the pepper trade, the soldiers preceded the nairs or nobles of Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected by the gratitude or the fear of the king of Cochin and the Zamorin himself.

Coutinho would listen to nothing, and Albuquerque was obliged to follow him. Calicut, taken by surprise, was easily set on fire; but the Portuguese, having lingered to pillage the Zamorin's palace, were fiercely attacked in rear by the Nairs, who had succeeded in rallying their troops.

When both armies approach within three arrow-flights, the king sends his bramins to the enemy by way of heralds, to challenge an hundred of them to combat against an hundred of his nairs, during which set combat both sides prepare themselves for battle.

Therefore, on the 1st of December, having hired a light bark, I and my two companions set sail; but had hardly got from shore an arrow-flight, when four of the nairs of the king's guard called to the pilot of our vessel, and ordered him, in the king's name, to come to land.

The chief priests of these idolaters are the bramins, who are with them as bishops are among us, and are considered as the order of highest dignity. The second order among them are the nairs, who come in place of our gentlemen, and go out to war with swords and bucklers, lancet, bows, and other weapons. The third order consists of mechanics and handicrafts of all kinds.

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