Note 134 — V. HERE FOLLOWETH CONCERNING INDIA THE GREATER.

For the continued existence of this remarkable custom of inheritance among the Nairs of Malabar, and for a description of the singular relations of the sexes out of which it springs, see a statement in Mr. Markham’s late Travels in Peru and India, p. 345. I am collecting, for another paper, the various examples of this law of inheritance in detail, and will only here mention that it exists, or has existed, also in Canara, (but there derived from the Nairs); among the aborigines of Hispaniola, and tribes of New Granada and Bogota; among negro tribes of the Niger; among certain sections of the Malays of Sumatra; in the royal family of Tipura, and among the Kasias of the Sylhet mountains (both east of Bengal); in a district of Ceylon adjoining Bintenne; in Madagascar; in the Fiji islands; and among the Hurons and Natchez of North America.