Over millennia, civets were traded between Ethiopia, Southeast Asia and India for civetone, a secretion of the anal musk glands used in traditional medicine, perfumery, and as a religious offering. Even today, small Indian civets are maintained on farms in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, for the extraction of musk. Kozhikode, the centre of most recent Malabar civet records, was a well-known trading port from ancient times.
