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
observed on this day, on which, and during the night, rice must not be
eaten. If the body has been cremated, a watch is kept at the burning
ground for five days by Panans, who beat drums all night to scare away
the evil spirits which haunt such spots. Early on the second day,
all who are under pollution are shaved. The operation is attended
with some ceremonial, and, before it is commenced, a lighted lamp,
a measure of rice and paddy on a plantain leaf must be at hand. The
paddy and rice are a perquisite of the barber. Those who have been
shaved bathe, and then follows the crow-feeding ceremony. Rice is
boiled in a bell-metal vessel over a hearth prepared with three
young cocoanuts. The eldest son, who tore the cloth of succession
from the corpse, makes the rice into two little balls, places them
on a plantain leaf, and offers them to the spirit of the departed by
pouring libations of water on them over a blade of karuka grass. Men
and women who are under pollution then do the same. The rice balls
are eaten by crows. This little ceremony is performed daily until the
eleventh or thirteenth day, when the period of death pollution comes
to an end. If the eleventh day happens to fall on a Tuesday or Friday,
or on any inauspicious day, the period is extended to the thirteenth
day. When the period of death pollution is partly in one month,
and partly in another, another death in the house within the year is
expected. Preceding the sanchayanam, which occupies the fifth day,
there is the lamp-watching on the previous night. In the south-east
corner of the middle room, a little paddy is heaped up, and on it
is placed a bell-metal plate with an iron lamp having five or seven
lighted wicks on it. Under the lamp is a little cow-dung, and close
to it is a bunch of cocoanut flowers. The lamp must be kept burning
until it is extinguished on the following day. In the case of the
death of a male, his niece watches the lamp, and in that of a female
her daughter, lying near it on a grass mat. The sanchayanam is the
first stage in the removal of death pollution, and, until it is over,
all who come to the house suffer from pollution, and cannot enter their
own house or partake of any food without bathing previously. When the
body has been cremated, the fragments of calcined bones are collected
from the ashes, and carried in procession to the sea, or, if this is
far away, into a river. The members of the family under pollution
then rub their bodies all over with oil, and the barber sprinkles
a mixture of cow's milk over their heads, using a blade of karuka
grass as a spout. They then bathe, and the eldest son alone observe
mattu. The crow-feeding ceremony follows, and, when this is over, the
three cocoanuts which were used as a hearth are thrown away. A large
bell-metal vessel filled with water is now placed in the front yard
before the door of the house. The barber carries the still burning
lamp from the middle room, and sets it on the ground near the pot of
water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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