Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7Thurston, Edgar
General
Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7
Thurston, Edgar
Caste -- India, South; Ethnology -- India, South; India, South -- Social life and customs; Tribes -- India, South
Concerning the marriage ceremonies of the Yerrakollas, I gather that,
on the betrothal day, kumbu must be cooked. Food is given to seven
people belonging to seven different septs. They are then presented
with betel leaves and areca nuts and four annas tied in a cloth, and
the approaching marriage is announced. On the wedding day, the bride
and bridegroom are seated on planks on the marriage dais, and milk is
sprinkled over them by people of their own sex. A few hours later,
the bridegroom takes his seat in the pandal, whither the bride is
brought in the arms of her maternal uncle. She sits by the side of the
bridegroom, and the Mettu Nayakan links together the little fingers
of the contracting couple, and tells them to exchange rings. This
is the binding portion of the ceremony, and no bottu is tied round
the bride's neck. At a marriage among the Vekkiliyans, two huts are
constructed in an open space outside the village, in front of which
a pandal is erected, supported by twelve posts, and roofed with leafy
twigs of the pongu tree and Mimusops hexandra. On the following day,
the bride and bridegroom are conducted to the huts, the bride being
sometimes carried in the arms of her maternal uncle. They worship the
ancestral heroes, who are represented by new cloths folded, and placed
on a tray. The bridegroom's sister ties the bottu on the bride's neck
inside her hut, in front of which kumbu grain is scattered. Betel and
a fanam (coin) are placed in the bride's lap. On the third day the
bridegroom is dressed up, and, mounting a horse, goes, accompanied
by the marriage pots, three times round the huts. He then enters
the bride's hut, and she is carried in the arms of the cousins of
the bridegroom thrice round the huts. The contracting couple then
sit on planks, and the cousins, by order of the Mettu Nayakan, link
their little fingers together. They then enter the bridegroom's hut,
and a mock ploughing ceremony is performed. Coming out from the hut,
they take up a child, and carry it three times round the huts. This
is, it is said, done because, in former days, the Tottiyan bride and
bridegroom had to remain in the marriage huts till a child was born,
because the Mettu Nayakan was so busy that he had no time to complete
the marriage ceremony until nearly a year had elapsed.
At a wedding among the nomad Tottiyans, a fowl is killed near
the marriage (araveni) pots, and with its blood a mark is made on
the foreheads of the bride and bridegroom on their entry into the
booths. The Vekkiliyans sacrifice a goat or sheep instead of a fowl,
and the more advanced among them substitute the breaking of a cocoanut
for the animal sacrifice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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