133 it. These men make the local wine and sell it. Nobody else is allowed to make it. They are very careful not to touch others of a lower caste and they live apart from others. Sometimes, two brothers will share the same wife, both of them sleeping with her as if it were quite natural. Another lower caste of people than they are the manens, who do not mix or touch anyone else, nor anyone else with them; they are labourers, I mean washers for ordinary people and mattress makers. Nobody else can hold these occupations, and their children are obliged to follow the same path. They have their own idols. They wash the cloths of the nair women when they have a period. These cloths have to be washed and wrung by these washers and not by any others, otherwise the nair women are not free from sin. They are the kings’ and nairs’ slaves. There is another low caste of people in this country called canacas, whose occupation is to make shields and parasols. They study the art of astronomy; arefine astrologers and correctly predict many things about the future and tell lords’ fortunes, who pay them for this. When kings wish to know something, they send for one of them and leave their palaces by the rear door, leading to their vegetable gardens. They meet them there and ask them what they want to know. They write it down and go home to study the matter. Once they have studied it, they return to the same place, because owing to their low caste, they cannot enter the palace. The king goes to meet them with some of his advisors. They stand at a distance from him and he tells them what he has managed tofind out. They are so versed in their idolatry and omens, that no king or lord will embark on any venture nor leave his house, without consulting them as to the day and time at which they should do so. Certain principal merchants also consult them about their voyages, and this is how they earn a living for themselves, their wives; children, and masters. Nobody ignores their advice. They always carry great bundles of palm-leaves on which they write their deceit. They do not enter the house of any respected gentiles. They
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