Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India.djvu/261

 were separated. The small body of Parivāra Bants, and the few Jain Bants that do not follow the aliya santāna system, are probably the descendants of a few families who allowed their religious conversion to Hinduism or Jainism to have more effect on their social relations than was commonly the case. Now that the ideas regarding marriage among the Bants are in practice assimilated to a great extent to those of most other people, the national rule of inheritance is a cause of much heart-burning and quarrelling, fathers always endeavouring to benefit their own offspring at the cost of the estate. A change would be gladly welcomed by many, but vested interests in property constitute an almost insuperable obstacle.

The Bants do not usually object to the use of animal food, except, of course, the flesh of the cow, and they do not as a rule wear the sacred thread. But there are some families of position called Ballāls, amongst whom heads of families abstain from animal food, and wear the sacred thread. These neither eat nor intermarry with the ordinary Bants. The origin of the Ballāls is explained by a proverb, which says that when a Bant becomes powerful, he becomes a Ballal. Those who have the dignity called Pattam, and the heads of certain families, known as Shettivalas or Heggades, also wear the sacred thread, and are usually managers or mukhtesars of the temples and bhutasthans or demon shrines within the area over which, in former days, they are said to have exercised a more extended jurisdiction, dealing not only with caste disputes, but settling numerous civil and criminal matters. The Jain Bants are strict vegetarians, and they abstain from the use of alcoholic liquors, the consumption of which is permitted among other Bants, though the practice is not common. The Jain Bants avoid taking food after sunset.