by Cochin with the assistance of the Portuguese. During the Dutch
period, the island was practically in the hands of that nation for several
years, and throughout the Travancore wars with Mysore it was a dis
puted point. In the Travancore portion the remains of the Dutch fort
of Ayakotta still exist. There are several churches on it, built in the
time of the Portuguese and the Dutch, while the Syrian Church at
Narakkal is said to have been founded long before that period. In
Pallipuram, a village in the island, is a Lazaretto managed by the
Collector of Malabar. The place was a Jesuit college during the
Portuguese period. The Dutch (x663-1795) turned it into a Lazarhaus,
and under one of the articles of the surrender of Cochin (1795) the
Madras Government is bound to maintain it.
Vyteri.-Village in Malabar District, Madras. See VAYITTIRI.
Wa States.-A collection of small States in :Burma, lying between
about z1° 3o'and z3° 3o' N., east of the Salween and of that portion of
the Northern Shan States which is directly controlled by the Superinten-
dent at Lashio. It consists, for the most part, of rugged mountainous
country of which very little is known, and is inhabited by various races,
among whom the WAS predominate. A good deal of the south-western
portion of the Wa country is taken up by the State of MANGLON. Wa
government is practically a system of village communities. The popula-
tion of Sonmu is mixed. The State contains Kachins, Shans, and
Panthays, as well as Was; and the settlement of Panthay (Chinese
Muhammadan) muleteers at Panglong is an important one. M6nghka
is a Muhso, and Mbnghsaw a Lao Shan, settlement in the Wa country.
The control exercised over the Wa States (with the exception of
Mangl6n) is for the present only nominal.
The Was are a hill people of Mon-Anarn extraction inhabiting for
the most part the northern half of the trans-Salween British Shan States.
The residents of the remoter portions of the Wa tracts, known as the
'Wild Was,' are in many ways at a very low stage of civilization. Their
resentment of interference and their savage habits, of which the practice
of cutting off the heads of human victims is the most notorious, have
led to their being left a good deal to themselves in the past; and no
attempt was made to enumerate them in 19o1, so that their precise
numbers are not known. Tl ere are, however, a fairly large proportion
of Was outside the omitted census areas, mostly in the Southern Shan
State of Kengtung. These were for the most part enumerated under
other names, such as Tai Loi (15,66o), Hsen Hsum (1,351), and the
like; those returned as Was numbered only 5,964. Taken altogether,
the representatives of the Wa race, inclusive of the inhabitants of the
omitted areas, are probably in excess of 50,ooo. The Was proper are
largely spirit-worshippers, and there seems to be no reason to doubt
that their custom of cutting off heads has a religious basis. Even those
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