c 



The Migratory Races of India. 



[No. 39, 



When they travel the mats are rolled up into a long bundle, the 

 bamboo frame work of the hut is bent, and, with their whole 

 household wealth, is made to fit inside the four legs of the cot 

 which is kept for the husband to sleep on, one end of the cot thus 

 inverted, is placed over a donkey's back and the other end drags 

 on the ground. 



The men informed me that they usually marry about the time 

 that their mustaches appear (18 years of age r) with women who 

 have attained maturity, and a bride is never taken to her husband's 

 hut before two months after this period of her life. They marry only 

 one wife, but they can keep as many of their women as they choose. 

 The greatest number however that any cf my informants remem- 

 bered to have seen in one man's hut, was one wife and three kept 

 women ; this latter class being in general^ widows. They told me 

 that this is the usual mode of providing for their females whose hus- 

 bands die, and the position of their women, therefore, seems pre- 

 ferable to that of the abject slavery which the widows of the hin- 

 doo castes are compelled to endure. 



The marriage ceremony consists in sprinkling- rice and turmeric 

 over the bride and bridegroom's head; and after it is over the 

 bride returns to her parents and remains with them for five days. 

 This period is passed in feasting on fowls and goat's flesh, and 

 rice ; and drinking spirits and milk ; and, on the fifth day, the 

 relations tie five pice, five betel leaves, five betel-nuts, five pieces 

 of turmeric, five seers of rice and one cocoanut in the young wife's 

 sarhi and conduct her to her husband's hut where more feasting is 

 made, and the married people are then left together. 



It is almost impossible to learn the social customs of a people 

 by questioning them, and, when an inquirer meets with such ex- 

 treme timidity as the people of this tribe manifested, the difficulty 

 of becoming acquainted with their ways is greatly increased. In 

 one of their customs, however, which they told me of, they differ so 

 much from the people of this country, that it deserves mention here. 



The Coorroo attaches much importance to the purity of their 

 unmarried females, but they regard a want of integrity in their 

 married women, as a trivial matter. They affect to be very vir- 



