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
Bazaar men, and those who sell their small stock at the weekly markets
all about the country, arrange their prices in vellis.
When the death of a Tiyan is expected, all the relations draw near, and
await the fateful moment. The person who is about to die is laid on the
floor of the middle room, for it is inauspicious to die on a cot. We
will suppose that the dying man is a parent and a landlord. Each of
the sons and daughters gives him a little conjee water, just before
he passes away. At the moment of death, all the women bawl out in
lamentations, giving the alarm of death. The Cheruman serfs in the
fields join in the chorus, and yell out an unintelligible formula of
their own. Absent relations are all formally invited. From the houses
of the son's wife and daughter's husband are sent quantities of jak
fruits, unripe plantains, and cocoanuts, as death gifts. One half of
the husks of the cocoanuts is removed, and the other half left on the
shell. After the cremation or burial, these articles are distributed
among those present by the Tandan, who receives an extra share for
his trouble. When life is extinct, the body is placed with the head
to the south, and the thumbs and big toes are tied together. It is
then taken out into the yard, washed, bathed in oil, dressed in a new
cloth, and brought back to the middle room. A cocoanut is cut in two,
and the two halves, with a lighted wick on each, are placed at the
head and foot. The house-owner spreads a cotton cloth over the corpse,
and all the relations, and friends, do the same. Any one who wishes
to place a silk cloth on the corpse may do so, but he must cover it
with a cotton cloth. The body is then removed for burial or cremation,
and placed near the grave or funeral pyre. It is the rural rule that
elderly persons and karnavans of tarwads are cremated, and others
buried. The barber, whose function it is to perform the purificatory
rites, now removes, and retains as his perquisite, all the cloths,
except the last three covering the corpse. As it is being borne away
to the place of burial or cremation, water mixed with cow-dung is
sprinkled behind it in the yard. The eldest son, who succeeds to the
property and is responsible for the funeral ceremonies, then tears
crosswise a piece of the cloth which has been placed over the corpse
by the people of the house, and ties it round his forehead. He holds
one end of the cloth while the barber holds the other, and tears off
the piece. The barber then cuts three holes in the remainder of this
cloth covering the body, over the mouth, navel, and pubes. A little
water and rice are poured over a gold fanam through the slit over the
mouth. All who observe the death pollution, i.e., sons, grandsons,
nephews, younger brothers and cousins, offer water and rice in the
same manner, and walk three times round the grave or pyre. The barber
then breaks a pot of water over the grave. No other ceremonial is
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