Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/464

IZHAVA day, she is again taken to and from the village tank (pond) with much éclat, and, on her return, she either treads on cloths spread on the floor, or is carried by an elderly woman. After this, she husks a quantity of paddy, and cooks the rice obtained thence. If this ceremony takes place at the house of a headman, the villagers present him with a vessel full of sugared rice. A two days' ceremonial, called Pulikudi in north Travancore, and Vayattu Pongala in the south, which corresponds to the Pumsavana of Brāhmans, is observed at the seventh month of pregnancy. On the first day, at twilight in the evening, the pregnant woman, preceded by the priestess, proceeds to the foot of a tamarind tree on the southern side of the compound. Arriving there, she receives a thread seven yards in length, to which a silver ring is attached at one end, and, by means of circumambulation, entwines the tree with the thread. If the thread is by chance or inadvertence broken during this process, the popular belief is that either the mother or the child will die soon. Next day, the thread is unwound from the tree, and a handful of tamarind leaves is given to the woman by her husband. On re-entering the house, tamarind juice is poured through the hands of the husband into those of the wife, who drinks it. The priestess then pours a quantity of oil on the navel of the woman from a betel leaf, and, from the manner in which it flows down, it is believed that she is able to determine the sex of the unborn child. The woman has to lean against a cutting of an ambazham (Spondias mangifera) tree while she is drinking the juice, and this cutting has to be planted in some part of the compound. If it does not grow properly, the adversity of the progeny is considered to be sealed. The husband is given a ring and other presents on this occasion.