Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/180

KURUMBA OR Rh race is that the unmarried females of the village or hādi generally sleep in a hut or chāvadi set apart for them, whilst the adult bachelors and children have a separate building, both under the eye of the head tribesman. The hut for the latter is called pundugar chāvadi, meaning literally the abode of vagabonds." The Jēnu Kurumbas are said to eat, and the Betta Kurumbas to abstain from eating the flesh of the 'bison'(Bos gaurus). In a note on the Jēnu and Betta Kurumbas of Mysore, Mr. M. Venkatanarnappa writes as follows. "The Betta are better clothed and fed than the Jēn Kurumbas. Their occupation is kumri (burning and shifting) cultivation. Their women are clever at basket-making. They can be distinguished by the method of dress which their women have adopted, and the way in which the men wear their hair. A Betta woman covers her body below the shoulders by tying a long cloth round the armpits, leaving shoulders and arms bare, whereas a Jēn woman in good circumstances dresses up like the village females, and, if poor, ties a piece of cloth round her loins, and wears another to partially conceal the upper part of her body. Among males, a Betta Kurumba leaves his hair uncut, and gathers it from fore and aft into a knot tied on the crown of the head. A Jēn Kurumba shaves like the ryots, leaving a tuft behind, or clips or crops it, with a curly or bushy growth to protect the head from heat and cold. The Betta and Jēn Kurumbas never intermarry." The Betta Kurumbas are, I am told, excellent elephant mahauts (drivers), and very useful at keddah (elephant-catching) operations.

Of the Kādu and Betta Kurumbas, as they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the following