Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/299

containing a cocoanut, betel and turmeric, is tied. The post is surmounted by leafy mango twigs. Just before the milk-post is set up, cocoanuts are offered to it, and a pearl and piece of coral are placed in a hole scooped out at its lower end. The bundle becomes the perquisite of the carpenter who has made the post. Only Brāhmans, Rāzus and the barber musicians are allowed to sit on the dais. After the distribution of betel, the bridegroom and his party proceed to the house of the bride, where, in like manner, the milk-post is set up. They then return to his house, and the bridegroom has his face and head shaved, and nails pared by a barber, who receives as his fee two annas and the clothes which the bridegroom is wearing. After a bath, the bridegroom is conducted to the chāvadi, where a gaudy turban is put on his head, and he is decorated with jewels and garlands. In the course of the morning, the purōit, holding the right little finger of the bridegroom, conducts him to the dais, close to which rice, rice stained yellow, rice husk, jaggery (crude sugar), wheat bran, and cotton seed are placed. The Brāhmanical rites of punyāhavāchanam (purification), jātakarma (birth ceremony), nāmakaranam (name ceremony), chaulam (tonsure), and upanayanam (thread ceremony) are performed. But, instead of Vēdic chants, the purōhit recites slōkas specially prepared for non- Brāhman castes. At the conclusion of these rites, the bridegroom goes into the house, and eats a small portion of sweet cakes and other articles, of which the remainder is finished off by boys and girls. This ceremony is called pūbanthī. The Kāsiyātra (mock flight to Benares) or Snāthakavritham is then performed. Towards evening the bridegroom, seated in a palanquin, goes to the bride's house, taking with him a tray containing an expensive woman's cloth, the tāli tied to