MANCTAL OF THE NtLAGIRI TIISTRICT. 213 



especial rites. It sometimey happens that after a couple have CHAP. IX, 

 cohabited for some time they agree to live together for life, and PART ill. 

 then their friends are iovited to a feast on the occasion. Widows ^^^^ „ 



JCjTHNOLOGY. 



are allowed to marry again. 



They burn their dead and, as a rule, take no care to collect the —Funerals, 

 ashes, but allow them be scattered to the winds. The body is 

 placed under a car hung with cloth but no ornaments, coins, or 

 implements are burnt with it. After dancing round the car to the 

 sound of their weird music, the corpse is burnt and the car with it. 

 Some few deposit a bone from the pyre in a Sdvumane or death 

 house — a small cromlech surrounded by upright stones and bearing 

 some resemblance to the more ancient cromlechs found on the hills, 

 but these are the Kurumbas who live near Rangas^mi's Peak 

 and Burliar. These ^ Savumanes they say were made by their 

 forefathers. They no longer make them. When they can afford 

 it, they administer a small gold coin called a Birian hanna ^ to 

 a dying man. This custom also obtains among the Badagas. 



Mr. Metz describes their language as a corruption of Kanarese Language, 

 with some Tamil words intermixed, and asserts that the Kanarese 

 dialect spoken by them is purer than that of the Badagas. Dr. 

 Caldwell however speaks of their language as " rude Tamil,'' 

 regarding that of the Badagas as " an ancient but organized 

 dialect of the Canarese.'' The Mysore Kurumba tribes speak old 

 Kanarese. 



They are said to have no traditions of any kind. But if this is Tradition. 

 true of the Nilagiri Kurumbas it does not appear to be quite the 

 case with some of the tribes in Mysore. Their habitual distrust 

 of strangers probably renders them uncommunicative. 



1 Breeks— Tribes, &c. 



* Birian-hanna or Viria raya, a gold coin struck in Mysore. Value j rupee. 



