The main items of expenditure at a wedding are the musician, presents of clothes, and pān-supāri, especially the areca nuts. One man, who was not rich, told me that it cost him, for a marriage, three maunds of nuts, and that guests come more for them than for the meals, which he characterised as not fit for dogs.
Widow remarriage is permitted. But it is essential that the contracting parties should be widower and widow. For such a marriage no pandal is erected, but all the elders countenance it by their presence. Such a marriage is known as naduvīttu tāli, because the tāli is tied in the mid-house. It is usually a simple affair, and finished in a short time after sunset instead of in the day time. The offspring of such marriages are considered as legitimate, and can inherit. But remarried couples are disqualified from performing certain acts, e.g., the distribution of pān-supāri at weddings, partaking in the harathi ceremony, etc. The disqualifications attaching to remarried people are, by a curious analogy, extended to deformed persons, who are, in some cases, considered to be widowers and widows.
Among the ordinary names of males are Basappa, Linganna, Dēvanna, Ellappa, Naganna; and of females Ellamma, Lingi and Nāgamma. It is said that all are entitled to the honorific Saudri ; but the title is specially reserved for the agent of their sect. Among common nicknames are Chikka and Dodda Thamma (younger and elder brother), Āndi (beggar), Karapi (black woman), Gūni (hunch back). In the Mysore Province the most becoming method of addressing a Lingāyat is to call him Sivanē. Their usual titles are Ravut, Appa, Anna,and Saudri.
The child-naming ceremony is a very important one.Five swords with limes fixed to their edges are set in
