Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/225

Rh recites mantrams suitable to the occasion. From the sixth to the ninth day there is practically nothing in the way of ceremonial. And, as that proper to the tenth day is invariably done on the sixth day, the ceremony may be said to conclude on the night of the sixth day. A few Brāhmans are fed to please the pitris, and the couple go to a jāk tree, under which some rice, curds, and ghī are placed on kusa grass, and an offering is made of flowers and sandalwood or powder. The kankanam, bamboo staff, arrow, and mirror are given to the Vādhyar, and the wedding is over.

Sir W. W. Hunter * speaks of the Nambūtiris as "a despised class," they having had fishermen ancestors. The little ceremony of catching fish, which is a very important item in the marriage rites, may look like preservation in meaningless ceremonial of something real in the past, but it only shows that, in an endeavour to interpret ceremonial, we must be far from hasty. Among the Shivalli Brāhmans of South Canara, the marriage mat is taken to a tank in procession. The bride and bridegroom make a pretence of catching fish, and, with linked fingers, touch their foreheads. It is recorded, in the Manual of South Canara, that "all Tulu chronicles agree in ascribing the creation of Malabar and Canara, or Kerala, Tuluva, and Haiga, to Parasu Rāma, who reclaimed from the sea as much land as he could cover by hurling his battle-axe from the top of the western ghauts. According to Tulu traditions, after a quarrel with Brāhmans who used to come to him periodically from Ahi-Kshētra, Parasu Rāma procured new Brāhmans for the reclaimed tract by taking the nets of some fishermen, and making a number of Brāhmanical threads