Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/377

Rh as to what day would be most auspicious for a marriage, erect pandals (booths), dispense with the use of liquor, substituting for it thick jaggery (crude sugar) water, and hold a festival for two or three days. But even the most Hinduised Savara has not yet fallen directly into the hands of the Brāhman priest." At the marriage ceremony of some Kāpu Savaras, the bride and bridegroom sit side by side at the auspicious moment, and partake of boiled rice (korra) from green leaf-cups, the pair exchanging cups. Before the bridegroom and his party proceed to their village with the bride, they present the males and females of her village with a rupee, which is called janjul naglipu, or money paid for taking away the girl. In another form of Kāpu Savara marriage, the would-be bridegroom and his party proceed, on an auspicious day, to the house of the selected girl, and offer betel and tobacco, the acceptance of which is a sign that the match is agreeable to her parents. On a subsequent day, a small sum of money is paid as the bride-price. On the wedding day the bride is conducted to the home of the bridegroom, where the contracting couple are lifted up by two people, who dance about with them. If the bride attempts to enter the house, she is caught hold of, and made to pay a small sum of money before she is permitted to do so. Inside the house, the officiating Dēsāri ties the ends of the cloths of the bride and bridegroom together, after the ancestors and invisible spirits have been worshipped. Of the marriage customs of the Kāpu Savaras, the following account is given in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district. "The Kāpu Savaras are taking to mēnarikam (marriage with the maternal uncle's daughter), although the hill custom requires a man to marry outside his village. Their wedding ceremonies