Note 23 — K (Continued)

It is noted by Mr. Hemingway that, “if a Koya youth is refused by the maiden of his choice, he generally carries her off by force. But a boy can reserve a girl baby for himself by giving the mother a pot, and a cloth for the baby to lie upon, and then she may not be carried off. Girls who consort with a man of low caste are purified by having their tongues branded with a hot golden needle, and by being made to pass through seven arches of palmyra leaves which are afterwards burnt.” (cf. Koraga.) According to Mr. R. E. Enthoven,23 “the suggestion seems to be a rapid representation of seven existences, the outcast regaining his (or her) status after seven generations have passed without further transgression. The parallel suggested is the law of Manu that seven generations are necessary to efface a lapse from the law of endogamous marriage.”