Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India.djvu/460

BRĀHMAN It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Tanjore district, that "one ceremony peculiar to the Milaganur Brahacharnams is that, before the principal marriage ceremonies of the first day, a feast is given to four married women, a widow, and a bachelor. This is called the adrisya pendugal (invisible women) ceremony. It is intended to propitiate four wives belonging to this sub-division, who are said to have been cruelly treated by their mother-in-law, and cursed the class. They are represented to have feasted a widow, and to have then disappeared."

(d) Vathima.—The Vathimas, or Madhimas, are most numerous in the Tanjore district, and are thus described in the Gazetteer:—"The Vattimas are grouped into three smaller sub-sections, of which one is called 'the eighteen village Vattimas,' from the fact that they profess (apparently with truth) to have lived till recently in only eighteen villages, all of them in this district. They have a marked character of their own, which may be briefly described. They are generally money-lenders, and consequently are unpopular with their neighbours, who are often blind to their virtues and unkind to their failings. [There is a proverb that the Vadamas are always economical, and the Vathimas always unite together.] It is a common reproach against them that they are severe to those who are in their debt, and parsimonious in their household expenditure. To this latter characteristic is attributed their general abstinence from dholl (the usual accompaniment of a Brāhman meal), and their preference for a cold supper instead of a hot meal. The women work as hard as the men, making mats, selling buttermilk, and lending money on their own account, and are declared to be as keen in money-making and usury as their brothers. They, however, possess many amiable traits. They are well known for a