Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/375

Rh another pot of liquor purchased at the expense of the bride's father, is given to the bridegroom's party when it retires. Every house-holder receives the bridegroom and his party at his house, and offers them liquor, rice, and flesh, which they cannot refuse to partake of without giving offence."

"Whoever,"Mr. Ramamurti continues, "marries a widow, whether it is her husband's younger brother or some one of her own choice, must perform a religious ceremony, during which a pig is sacrificed. The flesh, with some liquor, is offered to the ghost of the widow's deceased husband, and prayers are addressed by the Bōyas to propitiate the ghost, so that it may not torment the woman and her second husband. 'Oh! man,' says the priest, addressing the deceased by name, 'Here is an animal sacrificed to you, and with this all connection between this woman and you ceases. She has taken with her no property belonging to you or your children. So do not torment her within the house or outside the house, in the jungle or on the hill, when she is asleep or when she wakes. Do not send sickness on her children. Her second husband has done no harm to you. She chose him for her husband, and he consented. Oh! man, be appeased; Oh! unseen ones; Oh! ancestors, be you witnesses.' The animal sacrificed on this occasion is called long danda (inside fine), or fine paid to the spirit of a dead person inside the earth. The animal offered up, when a man marries a divorced woman, is called bayar danda (outside fine), or fine paid as compensation to a man living outside the earth. The moment that a divorcee marries another man, her former husband pounces upon him, shoots his buffalo or pig dead with an arrow, and takes it to his village, where its flesh is served up at a feast. The Bōya invokes the unseen