131 children are their heirs and when they die they have their corpses burned; their wives weep all the way to the pyre, and when they reach it, they take off a small gold jewel that their husbands give them when they marry and they throw on to him on the pyre and then return home. They do not remarry even if they are young girls; should they die, their husbands have them cremated and then they can re-marry. Their lineage is so pure that the nairs can touch them. There is another caste of people in this country called kushavan, who are no different to the nairs. It was just because of one mistake they made that they were made into a separate caste. Their occupation is to make crockery and bricks for covering the houses of kings and idols. They are covered with bricks rather than tiles and only these houses, for as I have already mentioned, others have thatched rooves. They have their own idolatry and idols. Their marriage laws are the same as the nairs’, who can sleep with their wives providing that they wash themselves of the sin and change clothes before entering their own houses. Another caste of gentiles are the mainato whose occupation is to wash the kings’, Brahmins’and nairs’clothes. This is their livelihood and neither they nor their children can have any other; they wash the clothes in large tanks and wells kept for this purpose, next to their houses. They have so many clothes, both their own and belonging to other people, that many nairs who have no clothes of their own to wear, share these ones. They give the mainato a certain sum every month to be supplied with clean clothes every day, and this is how they make their living. Every day, the nair send a boy to his house to carry and fetch clothes as required by his rituals. The mainato charge money for washing the clothes of others, and thus they provide a clean service for all and live comfortably from this. Their offspring do not mix with others, nor others with them. Only nairs can take their wives as mistresses, providing that they wash and change clothes. These washers have their own idolatry
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