as more binding than the sambandham among the Hindus on the coast. The women go about freely with their heads uncovered. They continue to live after marriage in their family or tarwad houses, where they are visited by their husbands, and the system of inheritance in vogue is marumakkatāyam as regards family property, and makkatāyam as regards self-acquisitions. These are distinguished on the islands under the terms Velliyāricha (Friday) and Tingalāricha (Monday) property. The family house is invariably called pura in contradistinction to Vīdu — the wife's house. Intermarriage between the inhabitants of different islands is not uncommon. The islanders are very superstitious, and believe in ghosts and hobgoblins, about the visible manifestations of which many stories are current; and there is an old māmul (established) rule on all the islands forbidding any one to go out after nightfall. Phantom steamers and sailing ships are sometimes seen in the lagoons or rowed out to on the open sea; and in the prayers by the graves of his ancestors, which each sailor makes before setting out on a voyage, we find something akin to the Roman worship of the Manes. The Moidīn mosque at Kalpēni, and the big West Pandāram at Androth are believed to be haunted. There are Jārams (shrines) in Cheriyam and Cheriyakara, to which pilgrimages are made and where vows are taken, and it is usual to chant the fatēah*[1] on sighting the Jamath mosque in Androth, beneath the shadow of which is the tomb of Mumba Mulyaka, the Arab apostle to the Laccadives."
In his inspection report of the Laccadives, 1902, Mr. G. H. B. Jackson notes that "the caste barrier, on the
- ↑ * The recital of the first chapter of the Koran.
