Porcupines, beef, and Horses

[Palaniappa at aol.com]

Classical Tamil poems also have several references to the eating of meat of
the porcupine which was called 'mul2avumaa' or 'mul2avumaa' meaning animal
with thorns ('mul2').

(Sorry, I have used l2 to denote retroflex l, since I do not know the
diacritic system used here.)

For example, naRRiNai 85.8-11 says," ..... the hill country where the woman
happily receives the fat meat piece of the porcupine felled by the hunter and
divides it up among the people of the village ...."

naRRiNai 285 describes how the dogs of the village excitedly jump about and
accompany a hunter as he enters the village with the porcupine he has hunted.


There are other references as well.


S. Palaniappan