Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/298

RAZU The betrothal ceremony of the Rāzus of Rājāpālaiyam is generally carried out at the house of the girl. On a raised platform within a pandal (booth), seven plates filled with plantain fruits, betel, turmeric, cocoanuts, and flowers are placed. A plate containing twenty-five rupees, and a rāvike (female cloth), is carried by a Brāhman woman, and set in front of the girl. All the articles are then placed in her lap, and the ceremony is consequently called odi or madi ninchadam (lap-filling). The girl's hair is decked with flowers, and she is smeared with sandal and turmeric. A certain quantity of paddy (unhusked rice) and beans of Phaseolus Mungoare given to the Brāhman woman, a portion of which is set apart as sacred, some of the paddy being added to that which is stored in the granary. The remainder of the paddy is husked in a corner of the pandal, and the beans are ground in a mill. On the marriage morning, the bride's party, accompanied by musicians, carry to the house of the bridegroom a number of baskets containing cocoanuts, plantains, betel, and a turban. The bridegroom goes with a purōhit (priest), and men and women of his caste, to a well, close to which are placed some milk and the nose-screw of a woman closely related to him. All the women sprinkle some of the milk over his head, and some of them draw water from the well. The bridegroom bathes, and dresses up. Just before their departure from the well, rice which has been dipped therein is distributed among the women. At the bridegroom's house the milk-post, usually made from a branch of the vekkali (Anogeissus latifolia) tree, is tied to a pillar supporting the roof of the marriage dais. To the top of the milk-post a cross-bar is fixed, to one arm of which a cloth bundle