Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/231

Rh go seven times round the pandal, and the screen is removed. They then enter the pandal, and the Dēsāri links their little fingers together. The day's ceremony concludes with a feast. On the following day, the bride is conducted to the house of the bridegroom, and they sprinkle each other with turmeric water. They then bathe in a stream or river. Another feast is held, with much drinking, and is followed by a wild dance. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and a younger brother may marry the widow of his elder brother. The dead are burnt, and death pollution is observed for ten days, during which the relatives of the deceased are fed by members of another sept. On the tenth day a caste feast takes place.

The Pentiyas are said * to distribute rice, and other things, to Brāhmans, once a year on the new-moon day in the month of Bhādrapadam (September-October), and to worship a female deity named Kāmilli on Saturdays. No one, I am informed, other, I presume, than a Pentiya, would take anything from a house where she is worshipped, lest the goddess should accompany him, and require him to become her devotee.

The caste title is Nāyako.  Peraka (tile). — An exogamous sept of Dēvānga.  Perike.___This word is defined, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as meaning literally a gunny bag, and the Perikes are summed up as being a Telugu caste of gunny bag (goni) weavers, corresponding to the Janappans of the Tamil districts. Gunny bag is the popular and trading name of the coarse sacking and sacks made from the fibre of jute, much used in Indian trade. It is noted, in the Census Report, 1891, that 