File:Castes and tribes of southern India. Assisted by K. Rangachari (1909) (14587479437).jpg

Identifier: castestribesofso06thuruoft (find matches)
Title: Castes and tribes of southern India. Assisted by K. Rangachari
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Thurston, Edgar, 1855-1935 Rangachari, K
Subjects: Caste -- India Madras (Presidency) Ethnology -- India Madras (Presidency) India -- Social conditions
Publisher: Madras Government Press
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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hem, and does puja to them after an effigy has beenmade at the waterside by a washerman. He then says Igave calves and money. Enter Kailasam (the abode ofSiva). Find your way to paralokam (the other world).I gave you milk and fruit. Go to the world of the dead.I gave gingelly (Sesamti7it) and milk. Enter yamalokam(abode of the god of death). Eleven descendants on themothers side and ten on the fathers, twenty-one in all,may they all enter heaven. He then puts the bricksinto the water. On their return home, the sons of thedeceased are presented with new clothes. It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Tanjore dis-trict, that, when a man dies, camphor is not burnt in thehouse, but at the junction of three lanes. Some Parai-yans, on the occurrence of a death in a family, put a potfilled with dung or water, a broomstick and a fire-brandat some place where three roads meet, or in front ofthe house, in order to prevent the ghost from returning.An impression of the dead mans palm is taken in
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■n< 113 PARAIYAN cow-dung, and stuck on the wall. In some places, e.g.,at Tirutturaippundi, the Paraiyans observe a ceremonyrather like that observed by Valaiyans and Karaiyans onthe heirs return from the burning-ground on the secondday. Three rice-pounders and a chembu (vessel) ofwater are placed outside the door, and the heir sits onthese, chews a piece of fish, spits thrice, and then goesand worships a light burning in the house. Tattooing is practiced on women and children ofboth sexes, but not on grown men. With children itis confined to a simple line drawn down the forehead.Among Paraiyans who have become Roman Catholics,the device is sometimes a cross. Women, like those ofother Tamil castes, frequently have their arms elabo-rately tattooed, and sometimes have a small patternbetween the breasts. A legend runs to the effect that,many years ago, a Paraiyan woman wished her upperarms and chest to be tattooed in the form of a bodice.The operation was successfully carried out ti

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