Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/542

KORAVA allowed boys of his own caste, and of no other, to perform the sacred duty, after the boy dedicated thereto had undergone the branding ceremony. This ceremony is seldom observed nowadays, as it leads to identification. Birth of a child on a new-moon night, when the weather is strong, is believed to augur a notorious thieving future for the infant. Such children are commonly named Venkatigādu after the God at Tirupati. The birth of a child having the umbilical cord twisted round its neck portends the death of the father or maternal uncle. This unpleasant effect is warded off by the uncle or the father killing a fowl, and wearing its entrails round his neck, and afterwards burying them along with the umbilical cord." The practice of the couvade, or custom in accordance with which the father takes to bed, and is doctored when a baby is born, is referred to by Alberuni* (about A.D.1030), who says that, when a child is born, people show-particular attention to the man, not to the woman. There is a Tamil proverb that, if a Korati is brought to bed, her husband takes the prescribed stimulant. Writing about the Yerukalas,† the Rev. J. Cain tells us that "directly the woman feels the birth pains, she informs her husband, who immediately takes some of her clothes, puts them on, places on his forehead the mark which the women usually place on theirs, retires into a dark room where there is only a very dim lamp, and lies down on the bed, covering himself up with a long cloth. When the child is born, it is washed, and placed on the cot beside the father. Asafoetida, jaggery, and other articles are then given, not to the mother, but to the father. He is not allowed to leave his bed, but has