Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/262

POTHORIA woman who wore a cloth out of doors would fall sick, not die. But the possibility of any woman of theirs wearing a cloth obviously seemed to them very remote. The Bonda Porojas have a sort of belief in ghosts — not altogether devils apparently, but the spirits of the departed (sayirē). These may appear in dreams, influence life and health, and vaguely exercise a helpful influence over the crops. I did not find out if they were propitiated in any way.

"A dead body is washed, tied to a tatty (mat) hurdle, taken outside the village, and burnt. After eight days (said to be four in the case of rich men), the corpse-bearers, and the family, sit down to a funeral feast, at which drinking is not allowed. A pig, fowl, or goat, according to the circumstances of the family, forms the meal. This is done in some way for the sake of the departed, but how is not quite clear.

"The Bonda Porojas live by cultivation, keep cattle, pigs, etc., and eat beef, and even the domestic pig. They pride themselves, as against their Hindu neighbours, in that their women eat with the men, and not of their leavings, and do not leave their village. The women, however, go to shandies (markets)."  Pothoria.— Pothoria or Pothriya, meaning stone, is the name of a small class of Oriya stone-cutters in Ganjam, who are addicted to snaring antelopes by means of tame bucks, which they keep for the purpose of decoying the wild ones. They employ Brāhmans as purōhits. Marriage is infant, and remarriage of widows is permitted. The females wear glass bangles.  Pōthu.— Pōthu or Pōthula, meaning male, occurs as an exogamous sept of Dēvānga, Mēdara, and Padma Sālē; and Pōthula, in the sense of a male buffalo, as a sept of Mādiga. 