Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/520

KORAVA 739 Koravas, or Korchas as they are called in the Anantapur district, on the police registers as members of wandering gangs or ordinary suspects. Of these, no less than 215, or 29 per cent., had at least one conviction recorded against them. In the Nellore district, in 1903, there were 54 adult males on the register, of whom no less than 24, or 44 per cent., had convictions against them. In the Salem district, in the same year, there were 118 adult male Koravas registered, against 38, or 32.2 per cent, of whom convictions stood. There are, of course, hundreds who escape active surveillance by assuming an ostensible means of livelihood, and allowances must be made for the possibility of numbers escaping conviction for offences they may have committed. The women are equally criminal with the men, but are less frequently caught. They have no hesitation in concealing small articles by passing them into the vagina. The best way of ascertaining whether this has been done is said to be to make them jump. In this way, at a certain feast, a gold jewel was recovered from a woman, and she was convicted.* This expedient is, however, not always effectual. A case came under notice, in 1901, at the Kolar gold fields, in which a woman had a small packet of stolen gold amalgam passed to her during the search of the house by her husband, who was suspected. She begged permission to leave the house to urinate. The request was granted, and a constable who went with her on her return reported her conduct as suspicious. A female searcher was procured, and the parcel found jammed transversely in the vagina, and required manipulation to dislodge it. Small jewels, which the Koravas manage to steal, are at once