they have preserved a noble bearing and a proud appearance.

The whole Coorg-population may be estimated at 25,000 or 26,000 souls. They have much increased in number during the last twenty years. They are no more killed ad libitum by their Rajahs, nor destroyed by harassing warfare. In former days they seem scarcely ever to have mustered more than 4000 or 5000 fighting men.

The national character of the Coorgs is perhaps tolerably well understood by the people of the plains, who look upon them as a fierce, irascible and revengeful race, not easily to be managed. On his death-bed the Head of a Coorg-family will now and then give his children and children's children a last injunction, which is held sacred, to hate and to ruin, as opportunity may offer, such or such a one and his house. A traditionary feud of this kind is carried on for generations often. In the open country, it is said, the Coorgs are matched by other people, Musulmar or Hindu, but in their mountain fastnesses, and behind the shelter of their native woods, they are formidable foes. Badaganu báyinda ketta, Kodaganu kayinda ketta, బడగను బామింద కట్టు, కడగను కృయింప శెట్టి, i. e. the Canarese man's guilt has come upon him through his mouth, the Kodaga's guilt through his arm, says the proverb. The Coorgs have always been an unlettered people. To the present day they are very ignorant, and consequently very superstitious. The worship of demons, of departed spirits, has usurped among them the worship of God. Charms and sorceries abound all over the country. Disease among men

ая

and cattle is readily ascribed to the curses and witchcrafts of enemies. The dead trouble the living and demand sacrifices and other atonements. Little or nothing has been done for the education of the people.

CHARACTER OF THE COORGS.

29

Nothing has been attempted systematically, to raise them in intelligence and character. On the contrary, it is a common complaint, that three vices, drunkenness, sexual licentiousness, and lying, have greatly increased during the Company's reign. In former days, the native rulers repressed drunkenness by summary and violent measures, now the Government draws a large revenue from the sale of intoxicating liquors : prostitutes formerly were turned out of the country, and Coorg men severely punished and degraded for intercourse with low-caste women, now the wicked and shameless may do as they please: in past times the Rajah would now and then cut off a man's tongue, or his head for having spoken a falsehood, in these days the man who lies most impudently and swears most fearlessly often gains the cause. When lies do not succeed, bribes will. Coorg is of a piece with the rest of India, it appears. Truth and righteousness can be established only by Christianity. But the Gospel, when truly received, will yet render the Coorgs a noble people, not inferior, I conceive, in truth and manliness, in intelligence and energy of soul and body, to their European brethren.

A principal cause of the strong and vigorous constitution of the Coorgs, which has greatly aided the excellent climate and the open-air-life of the people, is their custom of late marriages. In former times the Coorg men used to marry, when they had attained the age of thirty. Even now they marry at a comparatively ripe age. When Stephanas and Salome (the first converts) married, he was twenty-two years of age and the bride eighteen. But they have a strange and noxious custom, a kind of marriage-communism within the family. The wives of the brothers of one house are considered as common property. The children consequently are rather children of the family, or of the

mother, than of the acknowledged father.* The Brahmans, the clever casuists of India, who know to find a reason, or precedent for any thing, when it suits their interest, have told the Coorgs, that in this unnatural and hurtful custom they resemble the five great Pándava Brothers of antiquity, who had one wife Draupadi. There are similar abnormities, violating the natural and universal law of marriage, to be met with in contiguous provinces, the Polyandria among the Nairs and the Alya-Santàna law of the Tulu country. Still the Coorg-custom appears the most unfortunate transgression. The Alya-Santàna (nephew-inheritance) law is rather an indication, than a cause, of a diseased state of society, the sister's children being considered more surely of a man's own blood, than the children of the legitimate wife; for on this ground the nephews must originally have been constituted the legal heirs to a man's property. The Nairs, bad as their law is, have got only one wife in common, and form individual connexions elsewhere. Among the Coorgs the breach of the natural law of marriage is made still wider. sad indeed is the result of such a state of family-life in many houses. Jealousy, mistrust, heart-burnings, quarrels, often deadly hatred, spring from this bitter root. One evening, addressing a company of Coorgmen on the excellency of Christianity as a rule of life, I said: "leaving for a moment out of sight the salvation of your souls, and that eternal joy and glory, which Christ gives. to such as believe in Him, faith in His gospel would in this world render you happy men indeed, compared with your present miseries. As Christians, you would become sober men; think of

And

*Cæsar notes a similar law among the Britons. Bell. Gall: v. Cap. 14. "Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime fratres cum fratribus, et patres cum liberis. Sed qui sunt ex his nati, habentur liberi a quibus primum virgines quæque ductæ

sunt."

COORG MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

31

this! And, if you obeyed the gospel, there would be one man in each house, living in peace with his own wife and his own children." The men grew silent and thoughtful. "Would you not be happier for the change?" There was no answer; I left them to their own thoughts. One of the company near me said in a whisper to his neighbour: "the padre seems to know all about us."

In

It is not very dfficult to conjecture, how such a custom may have taken root among this people. warlike races, especially when under the influence of pantheistic ideas, the clannish feeling and the familyspirit often predominate over and almost absorb individual consciousness and personal rights. (Even among the people, whom God chose for his own from the heathen nations, we find a marriage-law, established for the preservation of family landed-property, undoubtedly more repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel, than that polygamy, which was permitted among them "on account of their hardness of heart," I mean the union of a man with the widow of a brother, who had died childless.) Among the Coorgs the family property descends accordingly not so much from father to son, as from generation to generation, the eldest member acting as head of the house. times of which there is no historic record, the people are said to have lived in a state of general warfare. Chief fought against Chief, Nádu (district) against Nádu. As a relic of that age, the deep trenches, which to this day are found intersecting the country in all directions, may be considered. In such an age destruction of life must have been very great. But it was of course the male community, which principally suffered in the turmoil. The people must soon have been exterminated, one should suppose, under such a state of things. But, if the surviving brothers would

In

become the rightful husbands of the widows, a second: and undiminished generation might rise in time to supply the place of the fallen. So much for the ancient origin of the lamentable custom.. In more recent times, the Rajahs were accustomed to keep a large number of armed men constantly in attendance upon themselves. A thousand Coorgs used to be fed daily, it is said, from the Rajah's kitchen. They were absent from home for weeks and months. On their return, their brothers would have to go to the Palace, or accompany the Rajah on some hunting or fightingexpedition. The brothers at home would then take the place of the absent in house and family. A sad confusion, sorely punished by manifold distresses of families and individuals. Two or three generations continue to live together in the ancestral house, a large human bee-hive, the grandfather and grandmother, their sons and daughters-in-law, the children of these families. I am told, there are some houses in the country containing sixty, seventy, eighty souls and upwards. Very fine and patriarchal, if there be peace in the house! But, what fearful misery, when such a house is rent by discord! In these days the ancient system is breaking up; many families have been torn by feuds, and many houses are threatened with ruin. The Gospel would lead the families of Coorg into the way of peace, of righteousness and happiness. that they knew it!

O,

It is quite a relief to turn from the above sad picture of Coorg-family-life to the contemplation of an ancient marriage custom, which has long held its ground among this interesting race. In former days there was another way, my informant told me, for contracting marriage, besides family-agreement. Two young people of the same (district) Nádu, would see each other, and without asking counsel of parents or