Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/487

Rh to creep. The hut affords protection from the sun and rain, but the Yānādis generally cook, eat, and sleep outside. The staple food of the Yānādis, apart from bazar purchases, consists of the following: —

Animals: — Sāmbar deer, wild goat, bear, porcupine, boar, land tortoise, hare, bandicoot and jerboa rat, Varanus (lizard), mungoose, and fish. Vegetables and fruit: — Dioscorea (yams); pith and fruit of Phœnix sylvestris (date palm); fruit kernel of Cycas circinalis, eaten after thorough soaking in water; and fruits of Eugenia alternifolia and Jambolana (black plum), Carissa Carandas and spinarum, Buchanania acuminata, and Mimusops hexandra . They are, like the Irulas of Chingleput, very partial to sour and fermented rice-water, which is kept by the higher classes for cattle. This they receive in exchange for headloads of fuel. For some time past they have been stopped by the Forest officers from drinking this pulusunīllu, as it makes them lazy, and unfit for work. The marriage ceremony is no indispensable necessity. The Adavi Yānādis, as a rule, avoid it; the Reddi Yānādis always observe it. The parents rarely arrange alliances, the parties concerned managing for themselves. Maturity generally precedes marriage. Seduction and elopement are common occurrences, and divorce is easily obtained. Adultery is no serious offence; widows may live in concubinage; and pregnancy before marriage is no crime. By nature, however, the Yānādis are jealous of conjugal rights, and attached to their wives. Widow-hood involves no personal disfigurement, or denial of all the emblems of married life.

A widow has been known to take, one after another, as many as seven husbands. The greater the number of her husbands, the more exalted is the status of a widow