Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/483

Rh relations repair to a tank or well outside the village. An effigy is made with mud, to which cooked rice, etc., is offered. Some rice is cooked, and placed on an arka (Calotropis) leaf as an offering to the crows. If a married woman has died, the widower cuts through his waist thread, whereas a widow is taken to the water's edge, and sits on a winnow. Her bangles are broken, and the bottu is snapped by her brother. Water is then poured over her head three times through the winnow. After bathing, she goes home, and sits in a room with a lamp, and may see no one till the following morning. She is then taken to one or more temples, and made to pull the tail of a cow three times. The Oddēs of Coimbatore, in the Tamil country, have elaborated both the marriage and funeral ceremonies, and copy those of the Balijas and Vellālas. But they do not call in the assistance of a Brāhman purōhit. A woman, found guilty of immorality, is said to have to carry a basketful of earth from house to house, before she is re-admitted to the caste.

The following note on a reputed cure for snake poisoning used by Oddēs was communicated to me by Mr. Gustav Haller. "A young boy, who belonged to a gang of Oddēs, was catching rats, and put his hand into a bamboo bush, when a cobra bit him, and clung to his finger when he was drawing his hand out of the bush. I saw the dead snake, which was undoubtedly a cobra. I was told that the boy was in a dying condition, when a man of the same gang said that he would cure him. He applied a brown pill to the wound, to which it stuck without being tied. The man dipped a root into water, and rubbed it on the lad's arm from the shoulder downwards. The arm, which was benumbed, gradually became sensitive, and at last the fingers could move, and the pill