



1323.] Cusioms and Manners of the Telugus and Tamils. — 63 
throughout their length, with the interval! decorated a 
different patterns. An they wear this, day in and day o 
This 1s economically oppressive and physiologically haesade 
In refreshing contrast to this, one finds that the women of the 
north have « simpler taste and are content with sarees 10 to 
12 cubits long. only made of cotton and occasionally inter- 
spersed with silk. In Rajahmundry it is possible to get a 
saree for four to ten rupees, while it is almost an impossibility 
in the south to purchase one, however cheap, for less than ten 
Again women who have their fasbands living, that is 
Sumangalis, will never wear a white cloth in the south, that 
eing specially reserved for widows. but the Telugu women 
have no scruples in the matter and the Sumangalis wear 
bordered white as well as coloured cloths, while the widows 
here also wear usually only a white eloth without a border. 
It appears these customs are more exacting in the south than 
in the north. 
5. In describing the life of the Urivas Mr. 8S. P. Rice wrote 
twenty years back with ds to their dress among their 
hare as follows: ‘*‘ The dress of the cooly class reaches only 
the knees and often =i so low—The process of robing is 
ae simple—The cloth is tied round the waist once, tucked 
in at one corner and thrown over the shoulder once or twice 
as its length may allow and the toilette is complete—a some- 
what simpler arrangement than the powders and patches, ae 
unguents and perfumes of Belinda’s bed-room—women 
0 not usually leave their own houses, women, that is to ae 
of the better class, wear the cloth reaching down to the ankles 
and put on one with ampler folds, should they be called upon to 
leave the house at an unusual hour.” This is true more or 
less even now of the Tamils and Telugus. The Telugu 
“seg women leave some folds of their cloth in the front, 
h 
eM ladea. al yee on- bea aia: pees sive choit Bee 
Se up ‘only along their left shoulder in the front first and 
then the end of the cloth along the right shoulder just as the 
Brahmin Telugu women do in the north. But many women of 
the other castes in the north dress almost like the Tamil 
tain the rationale for this difference in the mode of dress. 
But it came recently to my notice that an old orthodox Telugu 
