Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/28

20 centre of a circle of his comrades. One makes some noise. The man in the centre must instantly throw a stone at the man who made it, or, at any rate, in his direction. When the stone is thrown the wrong way the thrower is chaffed unmercifully.

Thus they learn to mark with a stone anyone approaching in the dark to disturb their criminal operations, knowing exactly where a man is by the sound of his voice or by the noise he makes in walking.

They have never been known to betray a friend or confess a crime.

Salutations they have none; but when one arrives from a long journey he is given water to wash his feet. If he bears bad news, as of a death, he must not enter a house until he has been taken to the liquor shop, and given plenty of liquor to drink.

Their money is squandered in drinking and gambling.

Sons inherit their father's property, the share of the eldest being the largest. Daughters and mothers are sometimes given a little of the property, but they have no intrinsic right to any.

There are two tribes: (1) the supposed descendants of Gunju Raju, a king; and (2) the supposed descendants of Svanna Mâdva, his minister; each sub-divided in gôtrams, or inter-tribal divisions. Margosa tree, cloth, wall, cot, mud-pot, basket, axe, patience, tamarind, naked, cheat, stone, hedge—are the names of some of these, derived, so they say, from some observed connection between the folk of a gôtram and some physical object or characteristic trait. All within (1) are considered to be brothers and sisters, and cannot intermarry; so they must marry into (2). who for the same reason must marry into (1); (2) is inferior to (1).

In all tribal or folk gatherings and marriages there is a man of (2) called the "Saduyagâdu", whose office it is to attend as may be required, make arrangements and so on, for which he receives regular fees. He has an assistant, a