218 
ON THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS 
is taken to her motlier's house, where cakes are distributed 
and a sumptuous meal is provided for all relatives and friends. 
Two men are then despatched from the house of the bride- 
groom to that of the bride, where they are welcomed as the 
escort of the young pair to the bridegroom's house, and re- 
ceive on starting with them a bundle containing eleven 
rice-cakes and a lot of jaggery. 
Many peculiar customs prevail among the Kurumba 
women, some of which they share with other castes. They 
generally take assafoetida after childbirth and bathe on the 
fifth day.^^^ Adultery is generally leniently punished and 
condoned with a fine. This is as a rule spent on an enter- 
tainment, after which the woman is readmitted into society. 
The Tali is not removed from the neck of a widow, imless 
she desires to remarry. In this case the marriage-tie is 
returned to the family of her former husband, and she wears 
that given by her new husband. A widow may remarry as 
often as she likes. 
On our historical knowledge about the Kueumbas. 
We are very insufficiently informed about the early his- 
tory of the Kurumbas. Before they settled down to any- 
thing like domestic life, they roamed as Vedas in. the vii'gin 
forests hunting the deer for its flesh and the wild animals for 
their own safety. In some places the traces of an ancient 
Kurumba occupation are not yet effaced. The Eev. F. Metz 
writes respecting their settlement on the Nilagui moimtains 
as follows : " There ai-e strong grounds for supposing that 
*' the Kurumbas once occupied and cultivated the plateau of 
" the hills, and were driven thence by the Todas into the 
" unhealthy localities which they now inhabit, on the pretext 
"of their being a race of sorcerers whose presence was a bane 
" to the happiness of the other hill-tribes. Several spots near 
1-' Seo Mackenzie jranuscripts, No, U, CM. 758. The Tamil for 
assaio-'tidii is GuQ^SS'SfTiUih rci uiikayain. 
