OF BHARATAVARSA OR INDIA. 
191 
No doubt these two tribes of the North and the South 
resemble each other strangely in their names and in their 
customs, but I am far from trying to force on them for these 
reasons any closer relationship than that which has from the 
first existed between them, namely that both of them formed 
part of the large Gauda-Dravidian race. Both are here 
mentioned together, as they afford an interesting example of 
similar sounding and nearly identical names being borne by 
two distinct, distant, and yet originally kindred tribes. 
CHAPTEE XII. 
On the Kurubas or KuruiMbas. 
Remarks about the name Kurumha. 
The Kurubas or Kurumbas who form the subject of 
this enquiry represent the most important of all those tribes 
that have been already mentioned in this chapter, owing to 
the influential part they have played in the History of India, 
and the position they still occupy among the people of this 
country. However separated from each other and scattered 
Kunets and other mixed races of North- West India." The linguistic 
evidence so far as the Kunets are concerned is very weak, in fact nihil. 
Nothing proves that the ti of Rdvati, the Sanskrit Airavati denotes river; 
and that a word like da, water, should in one and the same language be used 
in the same connection both at the beginning and the end of compounds 
as in Bdhu-da, Narina-dd, Bd-Muda, and Da-Sdn, is against linguistic rules^ 
About the Kolarian terms for water, dd, doi, di, dat, ti and tut compare 
Hislop's Papers, p. 27. 
Kead Mr. J. H. Nelson's Manual of Madura, Part 11, pp. 34-35 : " In 
this way a woman may legally marry any number of men in succession, 
though she may not have two husbands at one and the same time. She may 
however bestow favors on paramours without hindrance, provided they be of 
equal caste with her. On the other hand a man may indulge in polygamy to 
any extent he pleases, and the wealthier Kunnuvans keep several wives as 
servants particularly for agricultural purposes. Among the "Western Kun- 
nuvans a very curious custom is said to prevail. When an estate is likely to 
descend to a female on default of male issue, she is forbidden to marry an 
adult, but goes through the ceremony of marriage with some young male 
child, or in some cases with a portion of her father's dwelling-house, on the 
understanding that she shall be at liberty to amuse herself with any man of 
