[Marriage ceremonies.] 19. The following describes a marriage as carried out in the Mirzapur District. When the match is settled the father of the boy pays a visit to the girl’s father to make the final preparations. Next follows the betrothal (sa’at), which is carried out on a day fixed by the Pandit, who gets a fee of two annas. The father of the boy goes to the house of the bride with the bride price already described, pays it over, eats there, and returns next morning. Next follows the matmangar or collection of the sacred earth, which is done exactly as in the case of the Dravidian Bhuiyas, in the article on which tribe the ritual is described. When the earth is brought back to the house it is placed under the sacred water vessel (kalsa) near the pole of siddh wood fixed up in the centre of the marriage shed. This vessel is decorated with lumps of cowdung stuck in a line all round it, and over these grains of barley are sprinkled. The mouth is filled with mango leaves, and over them is placed an earthen saucer (kosa) full of the sânwân millet or barley. When this is completed all the women present are given some parched grain, which they receive in the part of their sheet covering the breast. 20. When this is over the anointing (telhardi) of the bride and bridegroom commences. This goes on every evening till the day before the wedding (Bhatwân). Next morning the boy is bathed by the barber, and the water is carefully kept for use in bathing the bride. The boy is dressed in a yellow loin cloth and a red turban and coat, when his mother takes him in her lap and five unmarried boys make him chew some cakes folded up in mango leaves. Then he spits on the palm of his mother’s hand and she licks it up, when the father and mother, with their hands covered with a cloth so that no one may see them, grind some urad pulse on the family curry stone (sil). This is made into lumps and offered to the sainted dead of the household with the prayer “Come and help us to bring the marriage to a successful issue!” Then the boy gets into the litter, while his mother waves a pestle over his head to drive off evil spirits. When the litter is raised the mother is obliged to creep beneath it, and as she attempts to do so the Kahârs put it down, and will not raise it until they receive a present. This present is called pilâi or “a drink.” It is customary with them that the procession should reach the house of the bride after nightfall, a survival of marriage by capture. They then go to the house of the headman of the village and present him with five chhatânks of betel-nut and curd—a possible sign of the commutation of the jus prima noctis, but more probably one of the ordinary dues taken by the village landlord at marriages. They stay some time at his door and dance and sing their own tribal song, the birha. Then they go to the reception place (janwânsa), which is usually arranged under a tree near the village.