The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 1 (of 4)Crooke, William
History
The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 1 (of 4)
Crooke, William
Caste -- India -- History; Hindus -- India; Tribes -- India -- History
square and worships Gauri and Ganesa, which concluded, his future
father-in-law marks his forehead with curds and rice. After this, food
(kalewa) is sent from the bride’s house for the bridegroom and the boys
with him, and in return his father sends five articles of jewellery for
the bride, and a sheet (sâri) for her and her mother. With this is sent
the water in which the bridegroom has been bathed. The bride is bathed
in this and dressed in the sheet and jewels. The bridegroom then comes
to the marriage shed, where his father-in-law washes his feet, and
seats him in the square (chauk) on his left hand, while the bride sits
on her father’s right hand. The pair then worship the household gods,
of whom images are made in dough, and both mark the water jar and the
branch of the cotton tree with red lead. Their clothes are knotted
together, and they do the usual five revolutions round the cotton tree,
while the bridegroom holds a winnowing fan (sûp) into which the bride’s
brother pours a little parched rice each time as they go round. The
bride sprinkles this grain on the ground out of the fan, and both
retire into the retiring room (kohabar), the walls of which are
decorated. There his mother-in-law takes off the bridegroom’s crown
(maur) and gives him a present. Next day follows the confarreatio
ceremony (khichari), which is done in the usual way. Next day the
bridegroom takes home his bride, but before he starts his father goes
and shakes down one of the poles of the marriage shed, for which he
gets a present (mânro hilâi). On the fourth day after they return the
ceremony ends by the barber’s wife taking the sacred jar (kalsa) and
the festoons (bandanwâr) of the marriage shed, and throwing them into a
neighbouring stream. On their return husband and wife offer a burnt
sacrifice (homa) to the local gods (dih).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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