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
Tribal disputes are referred to a headman, called Yejamana, who must
belong to the exogamous sept called Sambe, and whose appointment is an
hereditary one. To assist him, three others, belonging to the Kalkatti,
Kolkara and Kurinanga septs, whose hereditary titles are Pattagara,
Gouda and Kolkara, are appointed. The Kolkara has to invite people to
the panchayat (tribal council), collect the fines inflicted, and be
present on the occasion of marriages. A woman who, after marriage,
refuses to live with her husband, is punished thus. She is tied to
a tree, and the Kolkaran empties the contents of a hornet or wasp's
nest at her feet. After a few minutes the woman is questioned, and,
if she agrees to live with her husband, she must, in token of assent,
lick a mark made on his back by the Kolkara with fowl's excrement,
saying "You are my husband. In future I shall not quarrel with you,
and will obey you." Even after this ordeal has been gone through,
a woman may, on payment of a fine, leave her husband in favour of
another man of the tribe.
When a girl reaches puberty, she is anointed, decorated with jewelry,
and made to occupy a separate hut for seven days, during which time two
young girls keep her company. On the eighth day, all three bathe in a
pond or stream, and return in their wet clothes to the girl's home,
where they sit on a pestle placed in front of the door. A plantain
leaf is then placed in front of them, on which cooked rice and curry
are spread. A child, aged about eight or nine months, is set in the
girl's lap, and she feeds the infant with a small quantity of rice,
of which she herself swallows a few mouthfuls. Those assembled then
sit down to a meal, at the conclusion of which they wash their hands
in a dish, and the girl throws the water away. The feast concluded,
the spot is sprinkled with cowdung water, and cleaned up by the girl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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