Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/459

Rh she consents to his leaving her and going back to the caste, and he provides her with adequate means to live separately. The form of consent is for the woman to say that she is only a mud vessel, and has been broken because polluted, whereas the man is of bell-metal, and cannot be utterly polluted. The erring man is readmitted to the caste by being taken to the village common, where he is beaten with an erukkan (arka:Calotropis gigantea) stick, and by providing a black sheep for a feast to his relatives. At weddings and funerals, the Konga Vellālas employ priests of their own caste, called Arumaikkārans and Arumaikkāris. These must be married people, who have had children. The first stage, so far as a wife is concerned, is to become an elutingalkāri (woman of seven Mondays), without which she cannot wear a red mark on her forehead, or get any of her children married. This is effected, after the birth of at least one child, by observing a ceremonial at her father's house. A pandal (booth) of green leaves is erected in the house, and a fillet of pungam (Pongamia glabra) and tamarind twigs is placed round her head. She is then presented with a new cloth, prepares some food and eats it, and steps over a mortar. A married couple wait until one of their children is married, and then undergo the ceremony called arumaimanam at the hands of ten Arumaikkarāns and some Pulavans (bards among the Kaikōlans), who touch the pair with some green grass dipped in sandal and water, oil, etc. The man then becomes an Arumaikkaran, and his wife an Arumaikkāri. All people of arumai rank are treated with great respect, and, when one of them dies, a drum is beaten by a man standing on another man's shoulders, who receives as a present seven measures of grain measured, and an equal quantity unmeasured.