The customs of the different Indian nations are all very singular, if not whimsical. The Banians eat nothing which has had life in it; they are even afraid to kill the smallest reptile, however offensive to them; they throw rice and beans into their rivers as food for the fishes, and grains of different kinds upon the earth for the birds and insects. When they meet a hunter, or a fisher, they earnestly beg of him to desist; if deaf to their entreaties, they offer him money for his gun, or his nets, and when no persuasion nor offer will avail, they trouble the water to frighten away the fishes, and cry with all their strength to put the birds and other game to flight.
The Naires of Calicut form a class of nobles, whose sole profession is that of arms. These men are handsome, and of a comely aspect, though of an olive colour, and though they lengthen their ears to such a pitch as to make them fall over their shoulders, and sometimes lower, they are tall, hardy, courageous, and highly expert in military exercise. These Naires are allowed no more than one wife, but the women may have as many husbands as they please. Father Tachard says, that they sometimes have not fewer than ten, whom they consider as so many slaves, subjected by their beauty. This privilege is annexed to nobility, from which the women of condition derive to themselves every possible advantage. Those of inferior rank are allowed but one husband, but they comfort themselves under this restraint by the caresses of strangers, with whom they carry on their illicit amours, in defiance of their husbands, who dare not even speak to them upon the subject. The mothers prostitute their daughters in their early infancy. The nobles, or Naires, seem to be of a race different from the lower order, for the latter, men as well as women, are more ugly, yellow, unshapely, and more diminutive. Among the Naires there are some whose legs are as thick as the body of another man. This deformity they have from their birth, and not from any particular malady; and nevertheless they are exceedingly active. This race of men with thick legs have not increased much either among the Naires or any other classes of Indians; they are, however, in other places, and especially in Ceylon, where they are said to be the race of St. Thomas.