Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/393

Rh custom, an elder brother is allowed to marry the widow of his younger brother. Women wear on the right wrist a solid silver bangle called ghatti kadiyam, and on the left wrist two bangles called sandēlu, between which are black glass bangles, which are broken when a woman becomes a widow. The titles of members of this sub-division are Anna, Ayya, and, when they become prosperous, Nāyudu. In a note on the Velamas of the Godāvari district, Mr. F. R. Hemingway writes that they "admit that they always arrange for a Māla couple to marry, before they have a marriage in their own houses, and that they provide the necessary funds for the Māla marriage. They explain the custom by a story to the effect that a Māla once allowed a Ve'ama to sacrifice him in order to obtain a hidden treasure, and they say that this custom is observed out of gratitude for the discovery of the treasure which resulted. The Rev. J. Cain gives* a similar custom among the Velamas of Bhadrāchalam in the Godāvari district, only in this case it is a Palli (fisherman) who has to be married."

There is, a correspondent informs me, a regular gradation in the social scale among the Velamas, Kammas, and Kāpus, as follows: —


 * Velama Dora = Velama Esquire.
 * Kamma Vāru = Mr. Kamma.
 * Kāpu.

A complaint was once made on the ground that, in a pattah (title-deed), a man was called Kamma, and not Kamma Vāru. It is noted by Mr. H. G. Prendergast † that the custom of sending a sword to represent an unavoidably