Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/43

Rh crossways. The last is very important." A curl on the forehead resembling the head of a snake is of evil omen. In one form of the marriage rites as carried out by the Maravans, the bridegroom's party proceed, on an auspicious day which has been fixed beforehand, to the home of the bride, taking with them five cocoanuts, five bunches of plantains, five pieces of turmeric, betel, and flowers, and the tāli strung on a thread dyed with turmeric. At the auspicious hour, the bride is seated within the house on a plank, facing east. The bridegroom's sister removes the string of black beads from her neck, and ties the tāli thereon. While this is being done, the conch-shell is blown, and women indulge in what Mr. Fawcett describes as a shrill kind of keening (kulavi idal). The bride is taken to the house of the bridegroom, where they sit side by side on a plank, and the ceremony of warding off the evil eye is performed. Further, milk is poured by people with crossed hands over the heads of the couple. A feast is held, in which meat takes a prominent part. A Maravan, who was asked to describe the marriage ceremony, replied that it consists in killing a sheep or fowl, and the bringing of the bride by the bridegroom's sister to her brother's house after the tāli has been tied. The Kondaikatti Maravans, in some places, substitute for the usual golden tāli a token representing "the head of Indra fastened to a bunch of human hair, or silken strings representing his hair."*

In another form of the marriage ceremony, the father of the bridegroom goes to the bride's house,