The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s11.4

c19.s11.4

4. One may compare E. R. Leach's observation on the use of the jural idom of local group endogamy for legitimizing membership: "Anyone who was acceptable as a Pul Eliya landowner and was also acceptable in the capacity of brother-in-law to an existent Pul Eliya landowner would, in practice, be treated as of our *variga*" (*Pul Eliya*, [Cambridge, 1961], 303). Compare also the *mutha*, or "clan" territory, as described by F. G. Bailey, actually a group of lineages living in the same territory and expressing this fact as conventional agnation (*Tribe, Caste, and Nation* [Manchester, 1960], 47ff.). See Dumont's remarks in *Contributions to Indian Sociology* 7 (1964): 72.