Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/240

ERAVALLAR No ceremony is performed for a pregnant woman during the fifth or seventh month. If she dreams of dogs, cats, or wild animals coming to threaten her, it is believed that she is possessed of demons. Then a devil-driver from this or some other caste is called in. He draws a hideous figure (kōlam) on the floor with powdered rice, turmeric, and charcoal, and the woman is seated in front of it. He sings and beats his small drum, or mutters his mantram (consecrated formula). A lamp is lighted, and frankincense is burned. A kaibali is waved round the woman's face. She is worked up to a hysterical state, and makes frantic movements. Boiled rice, flattened rice, plantains, cocoanuts, and fowl are offered to the demon. Quite satisfied, the demon leaves her, or offers to leave her on certain conditions. If the woman remains silent and unmoved all the time, it is supposed that no demon resides in her body. Very often a yantram (charm) is made on a piece of cadjan (palm) leaf, and rolled. It is attached to a thread, and worn round the neck. A woman in childbirth is located in a separate small hut (muttuchāla) erected at a distance from the main hut. Nobody attends upon her, except her mother or some old woman to nurse her. As soon as delivery takes place, the mother and child are bathed. Her pollution is for seven days, during which she stays in the hut. She then bathes, and is removed to another hut close to the main hut, and is again under pollution for five months. Her diet during this period is simple, and she is strictly forbidden to take meat. The only medicine administered to her during the period is a mixture of pepper, dried ginger, and palm sugar mixed with toddy. She comes back to the main hut after purifying herself by a bath at the end of the five months. The day is one of festivity.