Kookcloo (Kookel Keloo), a Nair, writing on this subject, mentions that in the Ailed= country, the Ainkudi Kummaler are the five artisan castes,—the Ashary or carpenter, the Mushaly or brazier, the Tatum or goldsmith, the Perim- kollan or blacksmith, and the Tel - kollan or tanner. These five castes follow the custom of marrying one girl among three or four brothers; and this Kummaler custom of three or four brothers marrying one girl, is followed in some parts of Malabar by the Eeyoover, J liver or Teeyer, toddy-drawers, and partially, also, is the custom of the Muhanumulan Mopilla, in taking the wife of a deceased brother. The Kummaler and Teeyer are sprung from the same race, and in earlier times intermarried, and this may explain the similarity amongst them of this social yractice. It is only in the taluks of Nidungaimd, Kuttanad, Chowghat, in some parts of Vettutnad, and a few adjoining spots in South Malabar, that a woman amongst the Nair is kept at the same time by two or three men, who are not brothers. Although the customs of Nair, the Teeyer,and other castes of Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore, particularly by the two latter countries, are thus more or less identical, the practice of polyandry does not seem to have ever prevailed generally amongst the Nair and many of the Teeyer of North Malabar, from Kurumbranad to Mangalore.
As the result of the Aliya Santana rules, it is stated that, in the present day, the husband during his life gives his personal property to his wife and children, mortgages his permanent pro perty, and on his demise transfers it with the debts to the sisters and their children, so that the territorial possessions have all fallen to Brahmans, Muhammadans, and Christians.
In Canara, a similar system of inheritance obtains to that in Malabar, which is termed Aliya Santana, or nephew inheritance. As in Malabar, the Brahmans do not follow this rule. In its details, the Canara law of Aliya Santana corre sponds with that of the Malabar Marumakatayam, saving that the principle that the inheritance vests in the females in preference to the males is in practice better carried out in Canara, where the management of property vests ordinarily in the females, while in Malabar the males commonly administer thereto.
The Aliya Santana of the Tuluva country is similar to the old Italian law of descent, a ma trice, a sister's children being considered more surely of a man's own blood than those by his married wife (Coorg Memoirs, p. 30). In the Tuluva country, a Brahman widow can devote herself to the temple, and reside outside or inside its walls. If within, she is a servant of the idol, and receives men of her own caste only. The offspring of such, if boys, are called Moylar ; and if girls, are said to be given in marriage to the boys. But if the woman elect to reside outside, she must pay a monthly sum to the pagoda, and may cohabit with any one of pure descent.
The Coorgs continue to have a kind of marriage communism within the family, the wives of the brothers of one house being common property. Children, therefore, are rather children of the family or of the mother, than of the ostensible father. The Coorgs quote, as their authority for this custom, the story of Draupadi. But the state of family life in many Coorg houses, resulting from this custom, is very sad, giving rise to jealousy, mistrust, heart-burnings, quarrels, and often deadly hatred. At present, two or three generations continue to live together in the ances tral home, a large human bee-hive,—the grand father and grandmother, their sons and daughters in - law,. the children of these families ; some
houses containing sixty, seventy, eighty souls and upwards; but families are constantly being torn up and separated from the discord that occurs.
Dr. Baikie alludes to a somewhat similar com munity amongst the Canarese-speaking races to the north. The habits of the Coorgs. may vary amongst themselves. Reliable information from another source is to the effect that the first to take to himself a wife is the elder brother. But if she remain unfruitful to him, she passes to the next brother, and only when she fails to have off spring to any brother does she become an out caste from the family.
Until abolished by the governor, Sir Henry Ward, about A. D. 1860, polyandry prevailed throughout the interior of Ceylon, chiefly amongst the wealthier classes, of whom one woman had frequently three or four husbands, and sometimes as many as seven. The custom was at one time universal throughout the island. Valentyn, eh. vi. p. 95, is quoted for the fact that the king of Kotta, Wijaio Bahu via., who was reigning when the Portuguese built their first fort at Colombo, had one wife in common with his brother ; and Raja Singha i. was born in polyandry ; but the influence of the Portuguese and Dutch sufficed to discountenance and extinguish it in the maritime province. As a general rule, the husbands are members of the same family, and most generally brothers. According to the tradition of the Singhalese, the practice originated in the feudal times, when it is alleged their rice lands would have gone to destruction during the long absences enforced on the people by the duty, of personal attendance on the king and the higher chiefs, had not some interested party been left to conduct their tillage. Hence the community of property led at length to the community of wives. Sir J. E. Tennant, in A.D. 1848, was informed to the above effect by an aged chief of the Four Korles, Arunpulle Ratemahatmeya, who had lived under three native kings prior to the conquest of Kandy by the British. In more recent times, the custom has been extenuated on the plea that it prevents the subdivision of estates, the children of these promiscuous marriages being the recognised heirs of all the husbands, however numerous, of their mother. But it existed in Ceylon before the con quest of Wijaio. In Ceylon no disgrace attaches to such unions, and the offspring are regarded as equally legitimate with those born in wedloCk. Within a recent period, about A.D. 1860, a law has been introduced to put a stop to this custom. Sir J. E. Tennant tells us that, in Ceylon, in the province adjoining Bintenne, where the owner's sister's sons inherit in preference to the sons of the owner's wives, the custom is explained by a Singhalese legend to have originated from one of their kings being directed by an oracle to sacrifice a male child of the blood-royal, in order to thwart the malice of a demon who nightly destroyed the bund of a tank in process of con struction. But his queen refused to surrender one of her children, on which his sister volun tarily devoted her own boy to death. The king, in honour of her patriotism, declared that nephews were ever after to be entitled to succession in pre ference to sons. Also, in the western extremity of the province of Ceylon, adjoining that of Bin tenne, something like the custom of the races of Western India prevails, and nephews by the sister's side succeed to the inheritance, to the exclusion of the possessor's sons. Singhalese kings frequently married their sisters.