Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/535

Rh :Manganādu, territorial.
 * Sōzhia, territorial.
 * Tondamān, territorial.

These sub-divisions are endogamous, and Aiya and Ammā Pallans of the Sivaganga zemindāri and adjacent parts of the Madura district possess exogamous septs or kīlais, which, like those of the Maravans, Kallans, and some other castes, run in the female line. Children belong to the same kīlai as that of their mother and maternal uncle, and not of their father. The headman of the Pallans is, in the Madura country, called Kudumban, and he is assisted by a Kālādi, and, in large settlements, by a caste messenger entitled Vāriyan, who summons people to attend council-meetings, festivals, marriages and funerals. The offices of Kudumban and Kālādi are hereditary. When a family is under a ban of excommunication, pending enquiry, the caste people refuse to give them fire, and otherwise help them, and even the barber and washerman are not permitted to work for them. As a sign of excommunication, a bunch of leafy twigs of margosa (Melia Azadirachta) is stuck in the roof over the entrance to the house. Restoration to caste necessitates a purificatory ceremony, in which cow's urine is sprinkled by the Vāriyan. When a woman is charged with adultery, the offending man is brought into the midst of the assembly, and tied to a harrow or hoeing plank. The woman has to carry a basket of earth or rubbish, with her cloth tied so as to reach above her knees. She is sometimes, in addition, beaten on the back with tamarind switches. If she confesses her guilt, and promises not to misconduct herself again, the Vāriyan cuts the waist-thread of her paramour, who ties it round her neck as if it was a tāli (marriage badge). On the following day, the man and