Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/98

PANTA a Khond Pāno marriage, the fingers of the contracting couple are linked together, and an important item of the ceremonial, which adds dignity thereto, is placing in front of the house at which a marriage is being celebrated a big brass vessel containing water, with which the guests wash their feet. The Pānos pay reverence to ancestors, to whom, when a death occurs in a family, food is offered. In some Pāno villages, when a child is born, it is customary to consult a pūjāri (priest) as to whether the grand father or great-grandfather is re-born in it. If the answer is in the affirmative, pigs are sacrificed to the ancestors. Some Pānos have adopted the worship of Tākurānis (village deities), to whom rice and turmeric are offered by placing them before the image in the form of a figure-of-eight. A fowl is sacrificed, and its blood allowed to flow on to one loop of the figure. In some places, Dharmadēvata and Gagnasuni are worshipped, a castrated goat being sacrificed annually to the former, and fowls and an entire goat to the latter.

Pāno women, who live among the Khonds, tattoo their faces in like manner, and in other respects resemble Khond women. I am informed that, on more than one occasion, Pānos have been known to rifle the grave of a European, in the belief that buried treasure will be found.  Panta (a crop). — A sub-division of Kāpu and Yānādi. In the Gazetteer of South Arcot, Pan Reddi is recorded as a caste of Telugu-speaking ryots (Kāpus).  Pantala.— Recorded, in Travancore, as a sub- division of Sāmantan. The name is said to be derived from Bhandārattil, or belonging to the royal treasury.  Pantāri.— Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, as synonymous with the Idacheri sub-division 