Matrilineality among the Muslims and Tamils in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka arrived from Kerala, India via Muslim traders before 1200 CE. Matrilineality here includes kinship and social organization, inheritance and property rights. For example, "the mother's dowry property and/or house is passed on to the eldest daughter." The Sinhalese people are the third ethnic group in eastern Sri Lanka, and have a kinship system which is "intermediate" between that of matrilineality and that of patrilineality, along with "bilateral inheritance" (in some sense intermediate between matrilineal and patrilineal inheritance). While the first two groups speak the Tamil language, the third group speaks the Sinhala language. The Tamils largely identify with Hinduism, the Sinhalese being primarily Buddhist. The three groups are about equal in population size.