its natural environment provided. Each division was composed of numerous groups, who had different occupations and no doubt exchanged their products for those of other groups or divisions. Thus the people of the coast were divided into fishermen, pearl fishers, boatmen, makers of boats, salt makers, workers in shell, and merchants engaged in foreign trade. The early sources do not indicate whether these subdivisions were hereditary, but, in view of the situation existing in most cultures which shared the Southeast Asiatic co-tradition, it would seem highly probable that they were.

Modern ethnological studies in Southern India reinforce this conclusion. A similar division of activities still exists among the non-Hinduized tribes of the Nilgiri Hills. One of these tribes, the Toda, has become, largely by accident, the Indian group most frequently mentioned in ethnological literature. A plateau in the Nilgiri Hills is occupied by three tribes, the Toda, Kota, and Badaga. The Toda herd and milk buffalo and prepare the clarified butter which is an indispensable part, not only of the food supply of other tribes, but also of their ritual procedures. They carry on no other economic activities. The Kota are farmers, cultivating grain, while the Badaga are craftsmen, merchants and also musicians. The three tribes are completely interdependent economically and share the same territory amicably. At the same time they live in different villages, and each tribe is strictly endogamous. Each tribe also has its own distinctive patterns of costume, housing, social organization, and religion. There are various taboos governing behaviour between members of different tribes, particularly in cases where the exercise of tribal skills is involved. Thus it is forbidden to an outsider to enter a Toda dairy when churning is in process, Although the Toda are recognized by the other two tribes as the original proprietors of the district and are accorded additional respect for this reason, the system lacks the rigid stratification which characterized the Hindu caste .system and the religious rites of each tribe are performed by tribal members

The social organization within the numerous tribes which existed in Southern India at the beginning of the historic period cannot be reconstructed. However, studies of the modern aboriginal Dravidian peoples suggest that it may have been of almost Melanesian complexity, with clans, moieties, and elaborate marriage regulations. The only fact which is clear is that most, if not all, of the Tamil-speaking groups were originally matrilineal and even in some cases matrilocal. The position of women was and has remained exceedingly high, with older women in particular exercising dominance in family affairs. Although the introduction of Hinduism brought with it Hindu sex mores, with insistence on virginity at marriage and subsequent