Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/488

YANADI in society, and the stronger her title to settle disputes on questions of adultery, and the like. Polygamy is common, and a Yānādi is known to have had as many as seven wives, whom he housed separately, and with whom he lived by turns. The marriage ceremony is under going change, and the simple routine developing into a costly ceremonial, the details of which (e.g., the "screen scene") are copied from the marriage rites of higher castes in the Telugu country. Until quite recently, the flower of the tangēdu (Cassia auriculata) did duty for the tāli, which is now a turmeric-dyed cotton thread with a gold bottu suspended from it. The auspicious hour is determined by a very simple process. The hour is noon, which arrives when a pole, two feet high, stuck vertically on the marriage platform, ceases to throw a shadow. The pole has superseded the arrow used of old, and sometimes a purōhit is consulted, and gives the hour from his calendar. As a punishment for adultery, the unfaithful woman is, at Srīharikota, made to stand, with her legs tied, for a whole day in the sun, with a basket full of sand on her head.

The maternal uncle receives a measure of rice, a new cloth, and eight annas, at the head-shaving ceremony of his nephew. At this ceremony, which is a borrowed custom, the uncle plucks a lock of hair from the head of the lad, and ties it to a bough of the aruka tree. The head is shaved, and the lad worships the village goddess, to whom a fowl is offered. The guests are feasted, and the evening is spent in a wild torch-light dance.

At the first menstrual period, a Yānādi girl occupies a hut erected for the purpose, which must have within it at least one stick of Strychnos Nux-vomica, to drive away devils. On the ninth day the hut is burnt down,