on of its spiritual overlordship by personal
homage from the Maharajah once in every six years. Nothing, perhaps,
conveys more graphically the extraordinary sanctity which attaches to
the Brahman caste than the uncompromising manner in which all along the
Malabar coast they have enforced and maintained the laws of ceremonial
"pollution." Nowhere else have such stringent rules been enacted to fix
the precise distance at which the bodily presence of a member of the
lower castes is held to defile the sacred person of the Brahman. A Bazar
may approach, but must not touch him; a Chogan may not approach him
within 24 feet, nor a Kanisan within 36, nor a Pulayan within 64, nor a
Nayadi within 72 feet. Equally definite and elaborate are the manifold
restrictions on marriage, commensality, occupation, food, ceremonial
observances and personal conduct which affect the mutual relations not
only between the different castes but also between the innumerable
sub-castes into which the higher castes especially have in turns split
up. The laws which govern marriage, descent, and inheritance amongst the
more important castes throw a peculiarly interesting light on the
archaic type of society which has survived in Southern India. Under the
matriarchal system of _Manumakkathayam_, which on the Malabar coast
obtains to the present day, descent is traced only through the female
line. The male member of the family inherits, but he does so only as
the son of a female member of the family through whom he may justly
claim kinship, or, to put it in another form, a man's natural heir is
not his son, or his brother's son, or the descendant of a common male
ancestor, but his sister's, or his sister's daughter's son, or the
descendant of a common female ancestress. In the event of failure of
heirs through the female line, adoption is permissible, but the adoption
must be of females, through whose subsequent offspring the line of
natural descent may be carried on. With this ancient system are bound up
forms of matrimonial union and tenure of property into the complicated
and peculiar nature of which I need not enter here.

In the wild hill countries weird remnants of the most primitive races
still survive that have not yet been brought within the pale of
Hinduism, and here and there a sprinkling of Mahomedans remains as a
reminder of the shortlived incursions of Moslem conquerors from the
north. But ninety per cent. of the population consists of Hindus