Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/290

URALI cats, toads, bears, or white monkeys, expectorated violently at the mention of each, and the suggestion of the first three produced the most explosive oral demonstration. Tribal disputes are referred to a headman, called Yejamana, who must belong to the exogamous sept called Sambē, and whose appointment is an hereditary one. To assist him, three others, belonging to the Kalkatti, Kolkara and Kurinanga septs, whose hereditary titles are Pattagara, Gouda and Kolkara, are appointed. The Kolkara has to invite people to the panchāyat (tribal council), collect the fines inflicted, and be present on the occasion of marriages. A woman who, after marriage, refuses to live with her husband, is punished thus. She is tied to a tree, and the Kolkaran empties the contents of a hornet or wasp's nest at her feet. After a few minutes the woman is questioned, and, if she agrees to live with her husband, she must, in token of assent, lick a mark made on his back by the Kolkara with fowl's excrement, saying "You are my husband. In future I shall not quarrel with you, and will obey you." Even after this ordeal has been gone through, a woman may, on payment of a fine, leave her husband in favour of another man of the tribe.

When a girl reaches puberty, she is anointed, decorated with jewelry, and made to occupy a separate hut for seven days, during which time two young girls keep her company. On the eighth day, all three bathe in a pond or stream, and return in their wet clothes to the girl's home, where they sit on a pestle placed in front of the door. A plantain leaf is then placed in front of them, on which cooked rice and curry are spread. A child, aged about eight or nine months, is set in the girl's lap, and she feeds the infant with a small quantity