Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/395

Rh the latter chanced to make an elephant with earth, which was accidentally trodden on by the former, whence arose a man who stood bowing before them. He was called the Mannān because he came out of man (earth), and to him was assigned his present occupation. This tradition is referred to in the songs which are sung on the fourth day of a girl's first menses, when she takes a ceremonial bath to free her from pollution.

The Vēlans are found all over the southern parts of the State, as their brethren are in the northern parts. They live in thatched huts in cocoanut gardens, while the Mannāns occupy similar dwellings in small compounds either of their own, or of some landlord whose tenant they may be.

When a girl attains puberty, she is at once bathed, and located in a room in the hut. Her period of seclusion is four days. On the morning of the fourth day, she is seated in a pandal (booth) put up in front of the hut, and made to hold in her hand a leafy vessel filled with rice, a few annas and a lighted wick, when a few of the castemen sing songs connected with puberty till so late as one or two o'clock, when the girl is bathed. After this, the castemen and women who are invited are feasted along with the girl, who is neatly dressed and adorned in her best. Again the girl takes her seat in the pandal and the tunes begin, and are continued till seven or eight o'clock next morning, when the ceremony comes to an end. The songsters are remunerated with three paras of paddy (unhusked rice), twenty-eight cocoanuts), thirteen annas and four pies, and two pieces of cloth. The songs are in some families postponed till the sixteenth day, or to the day of the girl's marriage. Very poor people dispense with them altogether. The following is a translation of one of the songs.