Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/435

Rh given to the village Sitra. [The Sitras manufacture the brass rings and bangles worn by the Kondhs.] The body is then burnt. On the following day, a little rice is cooked, put on a dish, and laid on the spot where the corpse was burnt. An incantation is then pronounced, requesting the spirit of the deceased person to eat the rice and enjoy itself, and not to change itself into a devil or tiger, and come bothering the survivors in the village. Three days after death, the madda ceremony is performed. An effigy of the deceased is prepared of straw, which is stuck up in front of or on the roof of the house, and the relations and friends assemble, lament, and eat at the expense of the people of the deceased's house. Each person brings a present of some kind or other, and, on his departure on the next day, receives something of slightly higher value. The death of a man in a village requires a purification, which is made by the sacrifice of a buffalo on the seventh day after death. If a man is killed by a tiger, the purification is made by the sacrifice of a pig, the head of which, cut off with a tangi (axe) by a Pāno, is passed between the legs of the men in the village, who stand in a line astraddle. It is a bad omen for him if the head touches any man's legs. If the Pātro attends a funeral, he gets a fee of a goat for firing his gun, to drive away the dead man's ghost." According to Mr. Jayaram Moodaliar, if a person is killed by a tiger, the head of the decapitated pig is placed in a stream, and, as it floats down, it has to pass between the legs of the villagers. If it touches the legs of any of them, it forebodes that he will be killed by a tiger. In a note on the death ceremonies in Gumsūr, Mr.J. A. R. Stevenson writes as follows. " On life ceasing, they tie a sheep to the foot of the corpse. They carry the clothes, brass eating-dish, brass drinking-vessel,