Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/88

KRISHNAVAKAKKAR brother of the deceased husband, even though he is younger than herself. Issue, thus procreated, is the legitimate issue of the deceased, and acquires full right of inheritance to his property. If one brother survives the deceased, his widow is not required to remove her marriage ornament during life. The origin of the marumakkathāyam custom is alleged to have been that the first immigrants came with a paucity of women, and had to contract alliances with the indigenous Travancoreans. At the present day only about a hundred families follow the law of inheritance through the female line. Their children are known by the name of the mother's illam (house). The male, but not the female members of makkathāyam and marumakkathāyam sections, will eat together. A daughter, in default of male issue, succeeds to the property of her father, as opposed to his widow. The Krishnavakakkar believe that, in these matters, they imitate the Pāndavas. A peculiar feature of their land-tenure is what is known as utukuru — a system which exists to a smaller extent among the Shānars of Eraniel and the adjacent tāluks. In the ayakkettu or old settlement register, it is not uncommon to find one garden registered in the name of several persons quite unconnected with each other by any claim of relationship. In some instances the ground is found registered in the name of one person, and the trees on it in the name of another. The dead are generally cremated, and the ashes taken to the foot of a milky tree, and finally thrown into the sea. On the sixteenth day, the Āsān is invited to perform the purificatory ceremony. A quantity of paddy (unhusked rice), raw rice, and cocoanuts, are placed on a plantain leaf with a cup of gingelly (Sesamum) oil, which is touched by the Āsān, and poured into the hands of