Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/36

kota slaughtered as a matter of routine form, with no special ceremonial, in a pen outside the village, by blows on the back and neck administered with the keen edge of an adze. Towards midday presents of rice from the relatives of the dead man arrived on the back of a pony, which was paraded round the car. From a vessel containing rice and rice water, water was crammed into the mouths of the near relatives, some of the water poured over their heads, and the remainder offered to the corpse. At intervals a musket, charged with gunpowder, which proved later on a dangerous weapon in the hands of an intoxicated Kota, was let off, and the bell on the car rung. About 2 P.M., the time announced for the funeral, the cot bearing the corpse, from the forehead of which the coins had been removed, was carried to a spot outside the village called the thāvāchivadam, followed by the widow and a throng of Kotas of both sexes, young and old. The cot was then set down, and, seated at some distance from it, the women continued to mourn until the funeral procession was out of sight, those who could not cry spontaneously mimicking the expression of woe by contortion of the grief muscles. The most poignant sorrow was displayed by a man in a state of extreme intoxication, who sat apart by himself, howling and sobbing, and wound up by creating considerable disturbance at the burning-ground. Three young bulls were brought from the village, and led round the corpse. Of these, two were permitted to escape for the time being, while a vain attempt, which would have excited the derision of the expert Toda buffalo-catchers, was made by three men, hanging on to the head and tail, to steer the third bull up to the head of the corpse. The animal, however, proving refractory, it was deemed discreet to put an end to its existence by