Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/106

MUDUVAR weighing twenty or thirty pounds, is put at the head, and a similar stone at the feet. These serve to mark the spot when the roof perishes, or is burnt during the next grass fire. The depth of the grave is, for a man, judged sufficient if the gravedigger, standing on the bottom, finds the level of the ground up to his waist, but, for a woman, it must be up to his armpits. The reason is that the surviving women do not like to think that they will be very near the surface, but the men are brave, and know that, if they lie north and south, nothing can harm them, and no evil approach. The ghosts of those killed by accident or dying a violent death, haunt the spot till the memory of the occurrence fades from the minds of the survivors and of succeeding generations. These ghosts are not propitiated, but the haunted spots are avoided as much as possible. The Muduvars share with many other jungle-folk the idea that, if any animal killed by a tiger or leopard falls so as to lie north and south, it will not be eaten by the beast of prey. Nor will it be re-visited, so that sitting over a "kill" which has fallen north and south, in the hopes of getting a shot at the returning tiger or leopard, is a useless proceeding. Totemism does not exist, but, in common with other jungle tribes, the tiger is often alluded to as jackal.

Fire is still often made by means of the flint and steel, though match-boxes are common enough. Some dry cotton (generally in a dirty condition) is placed along the flint, the edge of which is struck with the steel. The spark generated ignites the cotton, and is carefully nursed into flame in dead and dry grass. The Muduvars also know how to make fire by friction, but nowadays this is very seldom resorted to. A rotten log of a particular kind of tree has first to be found, the inside of