ABSTRACT
Matriliny, especially as it has been defined under modern law and the manner in which villagers have adapted to its changes, comes under scrutiny in Chapter 10. Būta worship is closely related to the matrilineal system called aḷiyasantāna kaṭṭụ. The Baṇṭa landlords in the area are the main organisers of the būta rituals at village shrines, as each generation inherits ritual duties and worships family būtas within the matrilineal joint family (kuṭuma). In South Kanara, since the nineteenth century, kuṭuma has been reinterpreted in modern law as an indivisible ‘community of property’. After independence, rules of inheritance for family property and the rights of individual successors were regulated by new laws. Baṇṭa landlords, who traditionally held most of the land, have been greatly affected by this legislation. I describe how village-dwelling Baṇṭa landlords dealt with the changes brought by the Madras Aliyasantana Act of 1949 and other laws enacted since. The 1949 Act required members of a kuṭuma, who had maintained a loose unity based on the practice of būta rituals and their common ownership of land, to stipulate the land rights of each member. I describe the careful thought given to the ways a Baṇṭa family strove to maintain the kuṭuma as the comprehensive and integral basis of their lives and, at the same time, to reorganise it to conform with modern law.
