Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/553

Rh adultery, pleads inability to pay the fine, he has to walk a furlong with a mill- stone on his head. At the betrothal ceremony, a small sum of money and a pig are given to the bride's party. The pig is killed, and a feast held, with much consumption of liquor. Some of the features of the marriage ceremony are worthy of notice. The kankanams, or threads which are tied by the maternal uncles to the wrists of the bride and bridegroom, are made of human hair, and to them are attached leaves of Alangium lamarckii and Strychnos Nux-vomica. When the bridegroom and his party proceed to the bride's hut for the ceremony of tying the bottu (marriage badge), they are stopped by a rope or bamboo screen, which is held by the relations of the bride and others. After a short struggle, money is paid to the men who hold the rope or screen, and the ceremonial is proceeded with. The rope is called vallepu thadu or relationship rope, and is made to imply legitimate connection. The bottu, consisting of a string of black beads, is tied round the bride's neck, the bride and bridegroom sometimes sitting on a pestle and mortar. Rice is thrown over them, and they are carried on the shoulders of their maternal uncles beneath the marriage pandal (booth). As with the Oddēs and Upparavas, there is a saying that a Jōgi widow may mount the marriage dais (i.e., remarry) seven times. When a girl reaches puberty, she is put in a hut made by her brother or husband, which is thatched with twigs of Eugenia Jambolana, margosa (Melia Azadirachta), mango (Mangifera Indica), and Vitex Negundo. On the last day of the pollution ceremony, the girl's clothes and the hut are burnt. The dead are always buried. The corpse is carried to the burial-place, wrapped up in a cloth. Before it is