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
taken inside the house, and, after a general feast, is brought back,
and seated on the mana, and rice and flowers are sprinkled. No money
is paid to the uncle's son, as at Calicut. The boy bridegroom pays
eight annas to his sister for leading the bride by the hand. When the
marriage has been done by proxy, the boy bridegroom is selected from a
tarwad into which the girl might marry. He stays at the girl's house
for three days, and, on the fourth day, the boy and girl are taken
to a temple. A formal divorce is effected, and the boy is taken away.
It will not be worth while to attempt a description of the marriage
ceremony of the Tiyans of North Malabar, because there is none, or
next to none. There the Tiyans and all classes, including even the
Muhammadan Mappillas, follow the rule of marumakkatayam, or inheritance
through females from uncle to nephew. The children have no right to
their father's property. Either party may annul the marital union
at will, without awarding any compensation; and, as its infraction
is easy and simple, so is its institution. Nor is there any rigid
inquiry as to the antecedents of either party. It is an affair of
mutual arrangement, attended with little formality. Proceeding to the
girl's house, accompanied by a few friends, the intending husband
takes with him a couple of cloths, one for the girl, and the other
for her mother. In parts of North Malabar, the Tiyan women wear an
ornament called chittu (ring) in a hole bored in the top of the helix
of each ear. The holes are bored in childhood, but the chittu is not
worn until the girl forms a marital union with a man. The chittus
are made on the spot at the time, in the marriage pandal erected for
the occasion, the girl's uncle providing the gold. They are never
removed during life, except in cases of dire distress. "To sell
chittu" is equivalent to having become a pauper. It is supposed that,
in olden days, the marriage ceremonies lasted over seven days, and
were subsequently reduced to seven meals, or three and a half days,
and then to one day. Now the bridegroom remains the first night at
the bride's house, and then takes her to his home. Before they leave,
a cocoanut, the outer husk of which has been removed, is placed on
a stool of pala wood, and one of the bridegroom's party must smash
it with his fist. Some of the more orthodox in North Malabar observe
the formality of examining horoscopes, and a ceremony equivalent to
the conjee-drinking ceremony which has been described, called achara
kaliana, and the payment of kanam in the shape of forty-one fanams,
instead of forty-two as in South Malabar. In connection with fanams it
may be noted that the old gold fanam is reckoned as worth four annas,
whereas five silver or velli fanams make a rupee. Everywhere in rural
Malabar, calculations are made in terms of velli fanams thus:--
10 pice (1/12 of an anna) = 1 velli.
5 vellis = 1 rupee.
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