Digital dermatoglyphics of three caste groups of Mysore.

An analysis of digital pattern types and digital ridge counts was made for samples of three endogamous Mysore castes, viz., Lingayat, Vokkaliga and Adi Karnataka. The pattern types exhibit significant variations between Lingayat and Vokkaliga, and between Adi Karnataka and Vokkaliga, though, in general, distributional trend of the three principal pattern types are of the same order in all the three castes, having high frequency of loops, moderate whorls and low arches. In pattern types, differences between sexes are highly significant. The total ridge count (TRC) in both males and females is lower in the Adi Karnataka than in the Lingayat and Vokkaliga and the same holds good for the counts on each hand. Bimanual differences among the groups are small, and left hand counts in almost all the digits are consistently smaller than those of the right hand in all the castes irrespective of sex. TRC differences between sexes are not significant. It is striking that by contrast with the pattern type frequency data very little difference among the three Mysore castes emerges from the analysis of finger quantitative features, i.e., in total ridge count and pattern intensity index. Overall finger pattern frequencies of the present caste samples fit generally with those observed in other caste groups of Mysore but differ from the frequencies in Madras samples.