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kaas paraphrases the following legend current among specialist elevated Sudra exorcist priests (sengguhu):

All was well in Bali providing the King consulted brahmana, bodha, and bhujangga (sengguhu),But whereas both bodha and bhujangga practiced continence, the brahmana had three wives and the king even nine. This set the world in stir and commotion, caused anarchy and chaos (C. Hooykaas 1964).

The conflicting ideals of superior rank yet multiple wives lend the Brahmana category its generative complexity. Thus, the role of marriage levels in converting a warna category into what Dutch ethnographers called 'differentiated subcastes' (Verschillende onderkasten) is clarified in texts on the Brahmana legendary trek. Kersten encapsulates the variable versions to suggest the general thrust of Brahmana legends:
Brahmana know of five subcastes (onderkasten) only, and this condition was related back to their legendary progenitor (stamvader) Batara Dwi Jendra Wau Rauh, famous in Balinese history under the sobriquet: the new-come priest.
He came with his family from Blambangan, the kingdom on Java's east point and landed in Jembrana, Bali's southwest coast. After a very adventurous and wonderful trek he came across the Dewa Agung, whose palace was then still in Gelgel, near Klungkung.
Now, this priest had five wives, which is a little peculiar, since Brahmana priests are only permitted to have four - one from each caste.
From these five marriages of the progenitor there came into existence the five subcastes. His first wife, a Brahmana, gave life to the highest division, the Brahmana Kamenuh. From the second, a Satria-wife, sprang forth the Manuaba. The third, also a Satria, had already been married, but before she had met with her first husband, he died; out of this wife came forth the Brahmana Keniten. His fourth spouse was a Wesia and the last a Sudra. Out of her stemmed the Brahmana Kayu Sunya.

Kamenuh are strongly represented in the north and extraordinarily proud of their standing. Very unwilling are they for their daughters to marry-out to caste associates (kastegenooten) of lower groups, whereby the marriage possibilities of these women are indeed limited (1947).

Thus, traditional Brahmana typology concerns the origin not of castes, whose existence was assumed, but of subcastes-actually Brahmana ranks based on the status of different wives. The model is intrinsically debatable: the status of the fifth wife, the relative ranks of the two classes produced by Satria-wife forebears. The descendants of the Wesia-wife marriage may be designated Brahmana Mas, and the claims by the descendants of the Sudra-wife to be true Brahmana are sometimes denied. Friederich (1849: 104--5), for example, reports the view that Brahmana Gelgel comprises the second subcaste as descended from a Satria wife and Manuaba represents the third as descended from a Satria widow. Moreover, Brahmana Kayu Sunya are considered descendants of a slave, which renders their claims to Brahmana status problematic. Yet the principle behind the variant schemes is clearly and simply the rank of the wife.
Covarrubias, then, is misleading when lie generalizes: