134 The Ethnology of India. 



three-year-olds and four-year-olds in Ireland. The Canarese Bani- 

 jagas seem to be the chief of the right hand castes, with the lower 

 cultivating classes of Hollayers and Kallars under them — while the 

 better classes connected with the land appear to be the left hand, with 

 the Pariah serfs under them. The Abbe Dubois seems rather to 

 reverse this arrangement as respects right and left, but the more recent 

 statements are probably the better. The artisans seem to be divided. 

 I think that the subject deserves farther inquiry. Possibly these 

 factions may represent two different streams of civilisation and domi- 

 nation meeting in the south. 



The old dominant tribe of the South Western Coast are the Nairs, 

 who seem long to have dominated that country from the Western Ghats. 

 These Nairs are the chief people of Malabar and Travancore, and the 

 Bunts, who occupy a similar position in Canara, are cognate to them, 

 as are the Goorgs above them. They are chiefly notorious for the 

 singular custom of polyandry, and the consequent order of succession 

 through females. Polyandry is not now universally practised (though 

 not uncommon), but the rule of succession through females is at this 

 day the actual unvarying law of this people. They are a good-sized 

 well-featured race, but rather dark, especially compared to the other 

 inhabitants of this Coast. They are not only soldiers and landholders, 

 but are also often educated, and are then considered to be remarkably 

 good accountants. I have mentioned the prevalence of Bramins in 

 this part of India. They seem to get on very well with the Nairs, and 

 share the land with them. Indeed, it is said, that the Nair women 

 are not always satisfied with their own polyandrical arrangements, 

 and that a good deal of Bramin blood has been infused into the Nair 

 aristocracy by the channel of female descent. 



There seem to be a considerable number of the Agrestic slaves of 

 Malabar, the black aboriginal Chermars, to whom, as well as to the 

 Nagadies (if possible still lower), I have already alluded. The re- 

 maining important sections of the population of this part of India 

 I shall soon come to, but with regard to the effect of immigration 

 upon them, I shall class them under the head of Borderers. 



The system of village communities does not prevail on this Western 

 Coast. The land is there considered to be the private property, in full 

 right, of private landholders who hold separately, more after a modern 



