Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/103

Rh or covered with palm leaves. A bamboo framework, with similar leaves, serves the purpose of a door. There is a verandah in front. The Kootans have a few earthen and bamboo utensils for domestic use. They take rice kanji (gruel) prepared the previous night, with salt and chillies. They have some leisure at midday, during which they go to their huts, and take kanji with a fish or two boiled in it, or sometimes with some vegetable curry. At night, boiled rice, or kanji with fish or curry made of vegetables from their kitchen garden, form their chief food. All their provisions are acquired by exchange of paddy from a petty shop-keeper in their vicinity. They eat and drink at the hands of all castes except Paraiyans, Pulayans, Ullādans, and Nāyādis. In some parts of the State, they approach the houses of Izhuvas, and no other castes eat with them. They have to keep at a distance of forty-eight feet from all high-caste Hindus. They are polluted by Pulayas, Nāyādis, and Ullādans, who have to stand at some distance from them. They may take water from the wells of Māppillas. They are their own barbers and washermen, and may approach the temple of their village goddess Kali on some special days, while, at other times, they have to stand far away.

When a girl attains puberty, she is lodged in a corner of the hut. The inmates thereof may neither touch nor approach her on the score of pollution. Four or seven girls, who are invited, bathe the girl on the first day. The pollution lasts for seven days, and, on the morning of the seventh day, seven girls take her to a tank (pond) or river to bathe. A kai-bali is waved round her face, and, as she bathes, it is floated on the water. On their return to the hut, the girls are fed, and allowed