Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/99

Rh in rural Malabar, calculations are made in terms of velli fanams thus :—


 * 10 pice ($1/12$ of an anna) = 1 velli.
 * 5 vellis = 1 rupee.

Bazaar men, and those who sell their small stock at the weekly markets all about the country, arrange their prices in vellis. When the death of a Tiyan is expected, all the relations draw near, and await the fateful moment. The person who is about to die is laid on the floor of the middle room, for it is inauspicious to die on a cot. We will suppose that the dying man is a parent and a landlord. Each of the sons and daughters gives him a little conjee water, just before he passes away. At the moment of death, all the women bawl out in lamentations, giving the alarm of death. The Cheruman serfs in the fields join in the chorus, and yell out an unintelligible formula of their own. Absent relations are all formally invited. From the houses of the son's wife and daughter's husband are sent quantities of jāk fruits, unripe plantains, and cocoanuts, as death gifts. One half of the husks of the cocoanuts is removed, and the other half left on the shell. After the cremation or burial, these articles are distributed among those present by the Tandan, who receives an extra share for his trouble. When life is extinct, the body is placed with the head to the south, and the thumbs and big toes are tied together. It is then taken out into the yard, washed, bathed in oil, dressed in a new cloth, and brought ack to the middle room. A cocoanut is cut in two, and the two halves, with a lighted wick on each, are placed at the head and foot. The house-owner spreads a cotton cloth over the corpse, and all the relations, and friends, do the same. Any one who wishes to place a silk cloth on the corpse may