Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/370

SAVARA with us thirty pots of liquor, and a little rice and a cloth for the girl's mother; also some hill dholl (pulse), which we put in the father's house. The liquor was set down in the middle of the village, and the villagers, and those who came with me, drank the liquor and danced. The girl did not join in this; she was in the house. When the liquor was finished, my village people went home, but I remained In the father's house. For three days I stayed, and helped him to work in his fields. I did not sleep with the girl; the father and I slept in one part of the house, and the girl and her mother in another. At the end of the three days I went home. About ten days afterwards, I, with about ten men of my village, went to watch for the girl going to the stream for water. When we saw her, we caught her, and ran away with her. She cried out and the people of her village came after us, and fought with us. We got her off to my village, and she remained with me as my wife. After she became my wife, her mother gave her a cloth and a bangle. The same individual said that, if a man wants a girl, and cannot afford to give the liquor, etc., to her people, he takes her off by force. If she likes him, she remains, but, if not, she runs home. He will carry her off three times, but not oftener; and, if after the third time she again runs away, he leaves her. The Saoras themselves say that formerly every one took his wife by force." In a case which occurred a few years ago, a bridegroom did not comply with the usual custom of giving a feast to the bride's people, and the bride's mother objected to the marriage on that account. The bridegroom's party, however, managed to carry off the bride. Her mother raised an alarm, whereon a number of people ran up, and tried to stop the bridegroom's party. They were outnumbered, and one was knocked down, and died from rupture of the spleen.