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KUNYTS.
(212)

The Photograph represents a group of four persons of this class, three men and one woman, who, according to the custom of polyandry prevalent among the Kunyts, may probably be the wife of the three brothers, with whom she is represented in company. As details of this sect have already been given with Photograph No. 207, no particular explanation appears necessary in this instance. The woman does not wear the usual out-door dress of the Kunyts, which is fully represented in the next plate, No. 213. She has only the white woollen shirt and dark trousers, also of woollen stuff, which are worn in the house, and resemble the ordinary in-door costume of the lower orders of Mahomedan women, without, however, the scarf, which is an element of graceful attire apparently unknown among Kunyt women. The men, like the women, are clothed in tunics of white blanket stuff, girded round the waist with a rope of goat's hair, the trousers being of the same material, in white, grey, or black, according to the wearer's fancy. These stuffs are woven in the mountain villages from the fine wools of sheep and goats, and are warm and soft in wear. The large nose ring of Indian female jewellery appears to have been adopted by the Kunyt women, and is, as elsewhere, a token of marriage.