Chapter PLASSEY to POLIGAR of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Camõoes, vii. 37.

By Burton:

“The Law that holds the people high and low,
is fraught with false phantastick tales long past;
they go unclothèd, but a wrap they throw
for decent purpose round the loins and waist:
Two modes of men are known: the nobles know
the name of Nayrs, who call the lower caste
Poléas, whom their haughty laws contain from intermingling with the higher strain. …”

1598.—“When the Portingales came first into India, and made league and composition with the King of Cochin, the Nayros desired that men shovld give them place, and turne out of the Way, when they mette in the Streetes, as the Polyas …” (used to do).—Linschoten, 78; [Hak. Soc. i. 281; also see i. 279].

1606.—“… he said by way of insult that he would order him to touch a Poleaa, which is one of the lowest castes of Malauar.”—Gouvea, f. 76.

1626.—“These Puler are Theeves and Sorcerers.”—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 553.

[1727.—“Poulias.” (See under MUCOA.)

[1754.—“Niadde and Pullie are two low castes on the Malabar coast. …”—Ives, 26.

[1766.—“… Poolighees, a cast hardly suffered to breathe the common air, being driven into the forrests and mountains out of the commerce of mankind. …”—Grose, 2nd ed. ii. 161 seq.]

1770.—“Their degradation is still more complete on the Malabar coast, which has not been subdued by the Mogul, and where they (the pariahs) are called Pouliats.”—Raynal, E.T. 1798, i. 6.

1865.—“Further south in India we find polyandry among … Poleres of Malabar.”—McLennan, Primitive Marriage, 179.

POLIGAR, s. This term is peculiar to the Madras Presidency. The persons so called were properly subordinate feudal chiefs, occupying tracts more or less wild, and generally of predatory habits in former days; they are now much the same as Zemindars in the highest use of that term (q.v.). The word is Tam. palaiyakkaran, ‘the holder of a palaiyam,’ or feudal estate; Tel. palegadu; and thence Mahr. palegar; the English form being no doubt taken from one of the two latter. The southern Poligars gave much tr ouble about 100 years ago, and the “Poligar wars” were somewhat serious affairs. In various assaults on Panjalamkurichi, one of their forts in Tinnevelly, between 1799 and 1801 there fell 15 British officers. Much regarding the Poligars of the south will be found in Nelson’s Madura, and in Bishop Caldwell’s very interesting History of Tinnevelly. Most of the quotations apply to those southern districts. But the term was used north to the Mahratta boundary.

1681.—“They pulled down the Polegar’s houses, who being conscious of his guilt, had fled and hid himself.”—Wheeler, i. 118.

1701.—“Le lendemain je me rendis à Tailur, c’est une petite ville qui appartient à un autre Paleagaren.”—Lett. Edif. x. 269.

1745.—“J’espère que Votre Eminence agréera l’établissement d’une nouvelle Mission près des Montagnes appellées vulgairement des Palleagares, où aucun Missionnaire n’avait paru jusqu’à présent. Cette contrée est soumise à divers petits Rois appellés également Palleagars, qui sont independans du Grand Mogul quoique placés presque au milieu de son Empire.”—Norbert, Mem. ii. 406–7.

1754.—“A Polygar … undertook to conduct them through defiles and passes known to very few except himself.”—Orme, i. 373.

1780.—“He (Hyder) now moved towards the pass of Changana, and encamped upon his side of it, and sent ten thousand polygàrs to clear away the pass, and make a road sufficient to enable his artillery and stores to pass through.”—Hon. James Lindsay, in Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 233.

„ “The matchlock men are generally accompanied by poligars, a set of fellows that are almost savage, and make use of no other weapon than a pointed bamboo spear, 18 or 20 feet long.”—Munro’s Narrative, 131.

1783.—“To Mahomet Ali they twice sold the Kingdom of Tanjore. To the same Mahomet Ali they sold at least twelve sovereign Princes called the Polygars.”—Burke’s Speech on Fox’s India Bill, in Works, iii. 458.

1800.—“I think Pournaya’s mode of dealing, with these rajahs … is excellent. He sets them up in palankins, elephants, &c., and a great sowarry, and makes them attend to his person. They are treated with great respect, which they like, but can do no mischief in the country. Old Hyder adopted this plan, and his operations were seldom impeded by polygar wars.”—A. Wellesley to T. Munro, in Arbuthnot’s Mem. xcii.

1801.—“The southern Poligars, a race of rude warriors habituated to arms of independence, had been but lately subdued.”—Welsh, i. 57.

1809.—“Tondiman is an hereditary title. His subjects are Polygars, and since the late war … he is become the chief of those tribes, among whom the singular law exists of the female inheriting the sovereignty in preference to the male.”—Ld. Valentia, i. 364.

1868.—“There are 72 bastions to the fort of Madura; and each of them was now formally