Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/21

Rh the caste messenger. Council meetings are held at the village temple, and the fines inflicted on guilty persons are spent in celebrating pūja (worship) thereat. When a girl reaches puberty, the elderly females of Urālan families take her to a tank, and pour water over her head from small cups made of the leaves of the jāk (Artocarpus integrifolia) tree. She is made to sit apart on a mat in a room decorated with young cocoanut leaves. Round the mat raw rice and paddy (unhusked rice) are spread, and a vessel containing cocoanut flowers and cocoanuts is placed near her. On the third evening, the washerman (Peruvannān) brings some newly- washed cloths (māttu). He is presented with some rice and paddy, which he ties up in a leaf, and does pūja. He then places the cloths on a plank, which he puts on his head. After repeating some songs or verses, he sets it down on the floor. Some of the girl's female relations take a lighted lamp, a pot of water, a measure of rice, and go three times round the plank. On the following day, the girl is bathed, and the various articles which have been kept in her room are thrown into a river or tank. Like many other Malabar castes, the Chāliyans perform the tāli kettu ceremony. Once in several years, the girls of the village who have to go through this ceremony are brought to the house of one of the Urālans, where a pandal (booth) has been set up. Therein a plank, made of the wood of the pāla tree (Alstonia scholaris), a lighted lamp, betel leaves and nuts, a measure of raw rice, etc., are placed. The girl takes her seat on the plank, holding in her right hand a mimic arrow (shanthulkōl). The Pothuvan, who receives a fanam (coin) and three bundles of betel leaves for his services, hands the tāli to a male member of an Urālan family, who ties it on the girl's neck.