TAMIL CASTE SYSTEMS IN SRI LANKA 41 of Marumakathayam law clearly indicates that a matriarchal society was prevalent among them3. Others hold that the Mukkuwa entry to Ceylon was at about second AD4. A guiding characteristic of the Mukkuwas was the Kudi system, a family unit corresponding to the Roman gens which, 'abstained from sexual intercourse with each other'5. Along with the Mukkuwas was aligned in support or opposition, the Thumilas, a word meaning 'boatmen'. Since the Mukkuwas and the Thumilas were united in having the sea as their occupation, the fishers were the backbone of the caste system in that region, though the Vellalas arriving later from the North Ceylon as officials of the government or providers of services, such as teachers, were inclined to assert their caste 'superiority'. The caste system of the plantation Tamils occupies a different physical, economic and mental space. They are 'the Indian Tamils who work on the plantations as labourers, most of whom belong to low castes and come from the poverty-stricken parts of India'6. They were recruited from South India, as indentured labourers, from as early as 1839, when 2432 of them came over7. This migration to Ceylon quickened and expanded when the coffee plantations shifted to tea production. These workers were kept in mostly insanitary line rooms in the hill country, where the plantations were situated. The low pay and the indifferent working conditions could not induce the upper-caste persons of South India to come. (Though the plantation companies routinely insisted on 'high caste applicants' for their white collar jobs as 'kanakapulle', i.e. book-keeper). Caste-wise, the plantation workers were a truncated social pyramid, mainly of 'low castes' including, Pallas, Parayas and Chanas, with a sprinkling of Mudaliyars and Pillas8. These workers developed their 'folk cultures' which they had known or heard of in their South Indian habitat. Denied access to the surrounding Sinhalese villages through language (they knew Tamil only; the Sinhalese did not) and plantation companies' rules, they lived 'sealed in' lives, re-living of whatever they remembered of their past in the districts of Ramad, Tinnevely, Trichy, Tanjore and Cape Comorin. (Nonetheless, within their limits, untouchability was acknowledged and affirmed). Both orthodox Tamil and Sinhalese opinion for the most part, tended to look upon the Plantation Tamils as conglomerates of different castes. The question of their continued residence in Ceylon, among the ruling circles, was in doubt. And when Ceylon became independent in 1948, Citizenship Act (no. 18 of 1948) and the Indian