Nair

“ Goës, in Cathay, &c. ii. 554.
CAIMAL, s. A Nair chief; a word often occurring in the old Portuguese historians. It is Malayāl. kaimal.
1504.—"So they consulted with the Zamorin, and the Moors offered their agency to send and poison the wells at Cochin, so as to kill all the Portuguese, and also to send Nairs in disguise to kill any of our people that they found in the palm-woods, and away from the town.... ”

“ Down to the time of Tippoo the whole of Malabar was governed by the descendants of the sisters of these thirteen Nair chiefs. The Zamorin of Calicut has some influence, though he is much reduced in wealth and importance since the days of Vasco de Gama.
The Nairs live under the remarkable institution called murroo-muka-tayum. Sisters never leave their homes, but [Pg 345] receive visits from male acquaintances, and the brothers go out to other houses, to their lady-loves, but live with their sisters. ”

“ In these kingdoms of Malabar there is another sect of people called nairs, who are the gentry, and have no other duty than to carry on war, and they continually carry their arms with them, which are swords, bows, arrows, bucklers, and lances. They all live with the kings, and some of them with other lords, relations of the king, and lords of the country, and with the salaried governors; and with one another. And no one can be a nair if he is not of good lineage. They are very smart men, and much taken up with their nobility. ”

“ In few parts of the world there are more deadly feuds than in this province; and whenever a Nair is killed by a Moplah, or vice versâ, the relations will steep a cloth in the dead man’s blood, and vow never to lose sight of it till they have taken revenge upon the murderer. ”

“ There are several matriarchates still extant in the world, and one of the best known, as well as the most advanced, as far as civilization and culture are concerned, is that of the Nairs, a people of India inhabiting that portion of the country lying between Cape Comorin and Mangalore, and the Ghâts and the Indian Ocean.
The Nairs are described as being the handsomest people in the world; the men being tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are slender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. ”

“ And in that world out of the teeming millions of the Dravidian population, akin perhaps in remote ages to the inhabitants of the South Seas, the nobility are the Nairs. Aristocracy they can hardly perhaps be called with propriety, since they themselves do not claim to rule as being best. Rather they derive their nobility, by their own showing, from the fact that they were deemed worthy by the Aryan priests, whom they acknowledge to be the highest of mankind. The Nairs are a community, rather than a caste or tribe, with powers of assimilation. ”

“ The most important portion of the population is included in the eleven classes of Nairs, [390] a race of pure Sudra caste. They pretend to be born soldiers, and formed the armies of the Zamorin and Cochin Rajahs, the lower castes not being allowed to bear arms. The Nairs now hold most of the land in Malabar, and are frequently very rich. Both the Zamorin of Calicut and the Rajah of Cochin are Nairs ”

“ These nairs, besides being all of noble descent, have to be armed as knights by the hand of the king, or lord with whom they live, and until they have been so equipped they cannot bear arms nor call themselves nairs, but they enjoy the freedom and exemption and advantages of the nairs in many things. In general when these nairs are seven years of age they are immediately sent to school to learn all manner of feats of agility and gymnastics for the use of their weapons. ”

“ These men go naked from the waist upwards, and barefooted, having only a cloth wrapped about their thighs. Their hair is long and rolled up on the top of their heads, and they go always armed, carrying bucklers and naked swords. The Nairs have their wives in common among themselves, and when any of them goes into the house of one of these women, he leaves his sword and buckler at the door, and while he is within no other dare enter the house. The king's children never inherit the kingdom after their fathers, lest perchance they may have been begotten by some other man ”

“ Major Nairne thus became a peer (being the fifth Lord Nairne of Nairne, Perthshire) , and his wife was thenceforth known as Baroness Nairne.
Lady Nairne's chief object in life was now the training of her only son. Up to his fifteenth year she mainly taught him herself. Then she selected tutors with the greatest care. On the death of Lord Nairne in 1829 she left Edinburgh with the boy, settling first with relatives at Clifton, near Bristol. ”

“ Lord Nairne (this was the second Lord Nairne, Lord William Murray, fourth son of the Marquis of Atholl, who married Lady Nairne and took her title) , as I have said, died in 1724. It was his son, the third Lord Nairne, who was out in the '45, and here again the cold facts of history are too much for us, for after the catastrophe of the Act of Attainder he settled in France, and not in Hampshire; and at that date Richard Nyren was already twelve years old. Richard Nyren may have been a Nairne, but, if so, it was through another branch of the family. ”

“ Nairn was happy in his escape from the humiliation of being asked in marriage, and impatiently counted the days of mourning until he could make his demand on Mademoiselle de Sarennes “selon tous les règles de la bienséance.” That he was in love, even to the point of blindness, was amply proved by his astonishment that there were others in the like case as himself.
“Captain Nairn,” I said to him, in Margaret's presence, the day before his departure for Montreal with the troops, “as you are the head of your family, I have the honour to demand of you the hand of your sister in marriage.” ”

“ A fortnight previously the Earl of Mar had addressed the following curious letter to Captain Henry Straiton, [113] at Edinburgh, to whom many of Lord Mar's epistles are written. The allusion to Margaret Miller refers to Lady Nairn, the sister-in-law of the Marquis of Tullibardine, and wife of Lord Nairn, who, in compliance with a Scottish custom, took his wife's title, she being Lady Nairn in her own right [Pg 117] . The allusion to "a dose" which will require the air of a foreign country to aid it, seems to offer some notion of the Earl's subsequent flight. ”

“ M. Mahé de la Bourdonnais, who had some experience of their fighting qualities in the field, thus described them: 'Les Nairs sont de grands hommes basanés, légers, et vigoureux: lls n'ont pas d'autre profession que celle des armes, et seraient de fort bons soldats, s'ils étiaent disciplinés: mais ils combattent sans ordre, ils prennent la fuite dès qu'on les serre de près avec quelque supèriorité ”

“ The Nairs are addicted to drink, and may eat venison, fowls, and fish; and the families are fond of gaiety, and of visiting among people of their own rank, when there is much talking and singing. Most of the men, as well as the women, read and write in their own character, and there is a Government Gazette printed in the Malayalim language. ”

“ NAIRNE, EDWARD (1726–1806) , electrician, born in 1726, was probably a member of the family of Nairne resident at Sandwich, Kent. He early interested himself in scientific studies, and established a shop at 20 Cornhill, London, as an ‘optical, mathematical, and philosophical instrument maker,’ in which capacity he enjoyed royal patronage. ”

“ To [237] strengthen their bands, they will associate to themselves small bodies of Nairs and villains of the lowest Hindoo castes, who shrink from no species of cruelty and outrage. But, generally speaking, especially in the quieter districts of Malabar, the Moplahs and the Nairs are on terms of deadly enmity. The idolaters, who have been taught to hate the Faithful by many a deed of blood, would always act willingly against them, provided that our rulers would ensure subsistence to their families, according to the ancient custom of the country. ”

“ Nadir was beautiful as the moon, when from the blue vault of heaven she silently looks down upon the earth; agile and proud as the stag, at the head of a troop of fawns and young deer; compassionate as a mother to the cries of her child. ”

“ Nadir arrived; the temper of his scimitar, the vigour of his arm, the courage of his soul triumphed over the lion. The people worshipped him as a god: the heads of the tribe came to him and said, "Thou art stronger than we are: command us; and with us thou shalt be the master of this people."
Nadir reflected: "I can impose wise laws upon this people: but, if they submit to them by force, they will act in opposition to the destiny which God has appointed for man, which is, to act in accordance with his own will." Therefore, before disclosing to them his thoughts, Nadir listened to theirs ”

“ Involuntarily Nare whistled. In the hazy twilight it was not easy to distinguish shapes exactly, and the desolate moorland with the black bare Mill frowning in its midst, only a single skeleton sail left to show for what purpose it had been built centuries ago, and the utter silence, except for the homing bees, no doubt tended to ghostly thoughts. But either Nare was dreaming or——
"Whatever is that?" cried Miss Corcoran, suddenly catching sight of it. She put a startled hand on his arm, and Nare regained his cheerfulness. ”

“ Nan, with her white veil cloud-like round her face, looked at the track of light across the water. The moon wore a cloud round her face, too, but she looked in and out. The girl was very still.
"Oh, my dear! my dear!" Napier's heart cried so loud that in a kind of terror he fell upon audible speech. "It is the most wonderful night I ever—" and he stopped. His voice sounded strange. As she turned from the moon-path on the water to meet Napier's look fastened on her, he saw that her eyes had brought away some of the restlessness as well as some of the glitter of the sea. ”

“ Napier's right hand tightened on the bar of his crutch. He leaned an instant against the shoulder of his servant, feeling the dreaded onset of that dizzy sickness which comes back upon men who have had a touch of gas. Still, he was master enough of himself to notice that the captain moved a little as he put up his hand in recognition of some one on the wharf. Then Napier saw her—or was it Nan? ”

“ A few days later, when the sun was setting on the prairie, making the whole sky crimson, and flooding the world with its last rays of light, they buried him by the river's edge, Nares reading the funeral service over him, who, though perhaps he had said less of religion than most men, had lived a life so close to Nature, and face to face with God and His works, that he must have learnt the great secret and loved the Creator, as he undoubtedly in his own rough way loved all His beautiful creation. ”

“ Two or three years passed, and Nial grew more and more deformed, more and more unchildlike. Silent, morose, he was never content save when wandering high on the mountain-slopes, or among the pines, or by Iolair Water as it came swirling down its steep bouldered channels from the Linn o' Mairg. In one thing alone he transcended all the other dwellers in the strath, young or old. ”

“ India ink pressed into fantastic shapes, and writing-brushes made of deer’s hair, are carefully tied up in the pilgrim’s wallets, with the famous little Nara ningio, or images carved in wood. The Nara ningios always represent the legendary priests and people who founded Nara, and in these carvings the rural artists display great talent, giving wonderful expression to the tiny faces that are left rough faceted as first chipped off with the knife. ”

“ Naraini, meanwhile, behind her veil, gurgled with soft laughter, pleased at being able to test the value of her beauty on the man she meant to rule by it. So they stood--she in the shadow at one end of the alley, he in the shadow at the other; between them the scented path bordered by the runnels of water slipping by to bring a deluge to some portion of that little world. Some might have called it a pretty scene, instinct with the joy of youth; others might have turned their heads away, praying to be delivered from the world, the flesh, and the devil. ”

“ Nadir, in his turn, was visited by misfortune. Calumny pursued him: injustice extended high enough to reach him. He was banished from the wife of his bosom, from the son whose eyes were just opened to the light, and his life was dried up like the summer, when, although full of fire and vigour, it has lost its colours.
The people, whom he had taught to be industrious and happy, were given up to avaricious men, who converted their labour into an oppressive burden; and the memories which once refreshed the soul of Nadir now became to him a bitter and empoisoned spring. ”

“ One day he had to make his choice between two paths. "The first," it was said, "will conduct you to the abodes of a happy people, rich in the joys of life, and skilful in using them: your talents and beauty will there secure to you pleasure, glory, and fortune. By following the other, you will find a tribe of savage men, wild as their native woods, hard as the rocks they scale." The young blood of Nadir rushed towards the spot where difficulty and labour awaited him. He recollected the words of the sage, and found them grateful to his heart. ”

“ The Nayres, who are their nobles, if they chance to touch any of the common people, purify themselves by ablution, as was done by the Jews and Samaritans. The women among the Nayres axe common to all, but chiefly those, of the Bramin cast, so that no one knows his father, nor is any one bound to maintain the children. These Nayres are wonderfully expert in the use of their weapons, in which they begin to exercise themselves at seven years of age. ”