Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/401

Rh afford to have these images made, substitute a stone. Offerings are made to these images, or to the stones at every full moon. The throat of a fowl will be cut outside, and the bird is then taken inside and offered. The entrance is at C.



There are windows at * * *. E are rooms occupied by women and children. It may be noticed that the apartment where the men sleep has no windows on the side of the house which is occupied by women. The latter are relatively free from control by the men as to who may visit them. We saw, when speaking of funeral ceremonies, that a house is supposed to have a courtyard, and, of course, it has this only when there are four sides to the house. The nālapura is the proper form of house, for in this alone can all ceremonial be observed in orthodox fashion. But it is not the ordinary Nāyar's house that one sees all over Malabar.

The ordinary house is roughly of the shape here indicated. Invariably there is an upper storey. There are no doors, and only a few tiny windows opening to the west. Men sleep at one end, women at the other, each having their own staircase. Around the house there is