RHODIA, an out-caste race in Ceylon, little numerous, forbidden to approach a temple or any of the higher castes. According to one tradition, these scarcely civilised beings were hunters who, on the eve of a solemn occasion, failing to obtain game, etc., murdered a child and sent its dis membered body to the king ; but another tradition is to the effect that this caste persisted in eating beef after its use as food had been prohibited. The native laws forbade a Rhodia to approach a temple of Buddha or the gods, to build houses, or to live in any abode enclosed within walls —and even to this day their dwellings are mere sheds,— nor even to cultivate the soil or possess land. They were forbidden to approach, much less to touch or breathe upon, a caste man; and all things they touch are unclean. The men wander about in parties or tribes seeking their precarious sub sistence. Their vvomen perform feats of legerde main, and tell fortunes, their want of cfastity being proverbial. Their numbers do not exceed
a thousand, and they are principally in the Kandyan province, at Saffragam, Dombera, Wallepane, etc. Nominally Buddhists, they are also devil-worshippers. Rodeya or Rodda, in Singhalese literally means filth. In their social d egradation ,theyresemble the Cagots and Caqueax, who from time immemorial have been held in abhorrence in the valleys of the Pyrenees and the plains of Bretagne, Poitou, and Guienne. They are living in small communities in kuppams or hamlets in different parts of Ceylon, but their language, customs, and observances are identical. They were formerly compelled to remain aloof from all other inhabitants, and even yet their very shadow is avoided, and held to contaminate and render impure any object on which it may happen to fall. They are mat weavers, beggars, thieves, and scavengers, and fall on their knees with up lifted hands before any Singhalese.—Sirr's Ceylon, p. 215.