Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/241

Rh prayer. They act as their own caste priests, but for the punyāha or purificatory ceremony and the initiation into the ashtākshara, which are necessary on special occasions, the services of Brāhmans are engaged.

The Pishāratis celebrate the tāli-kettu ceremony before the girl reaches puberty. The most important item therein is the joining of the hands of the bride and bridegroom. The planting of a jasmine shoot is observed as an indispensable preliminary rite. The events between this and the joining of hands are the same as with other Ambalavāsis. The bride and bridegroom bathe, and wear clothes touched by each other. The girl's mother then gives her a wedding garland and a mirror, with which she sits, her face covered with a cloth. The cherutāli, or marriage ornament, is tied by the bridegroom round the girl's neck. If this husband dies, the tāli has to be removed, and the widow observes pollution. Her sons have to make oblations of cooked rice, and, for all social and religious purposes, the woman is regarded as a widow, though she is not debarred from contracting a sambandham (alliance) with a man of her own caste, or a Brāhman. If the wife dies, the husband has, in like manner, to observe pollution, and make oblations of cooked rice. There are cases in which the tāli-kettu is performed by a Pishārati, and sambandham contracted with a Brāhman. If the tāli-tier becomes the husband, no separate cloth-giving ceremony need be gone through by him after the girl has reached puberty. Inheritance is in the female line, so much so that a wife and children are not entitled to compensation for the performance of a man's funeral rites. No particular month is fixed for the name-giving rite, as it suffices if this is performed before the annaprasana