________________
Nov. 1, 1872.]
son present, and gives him betelnut, and all the assembled guests repeat this mantra"Take rice and eat,
THE PALIS OF DINAJPUR.
Let the thorns of time be far away, Let that which is empty be refilled Victory to Jagannâth, let there be peace, The name of Hari is sweet as honey." The bride and bridegroom then go to the house of the bride's father, he makes them presents and the next day they return home.
Widow marriage is commonly practised both by the Palis aud Koch, they call it kâhin(); it nearly corresponds to the Musalman nika. If an elder brother dies leaving a widow, his younger brother has a right to marry her; if he refuses to take her she can marry into another family, but in that case a dower is usually paid by the bridegroom. In this form of marriage, five or six widows or married women go by night and take the widow who is to be married to a place where three roads meet; in the meantime the bridegroom takes some vermilion and mixes it with oil and puts it on a plantain leaf and goes to the place, one of the women puts the vermilion on the bride's forehead and another washes it off again, saying that the name of her old husband is obliterated while that of a new husband has taken its place. This is done three times, and the woman is then taken home and made to sit with her husband on a piece of cloth, they then present each other with water, and a flower made of sola is tied on the bridegroom's knee and another on the pot containing the vermilion; the friends who are present are then feasted, this is all done privately so that no one can see, no purohit is required for this ceremony, and no unmarried person is allowed to be present.
Another form of marriage is the ghârjiyâ (arr). In this the guardian of a virgin settles with a man to give him the woman in marriage, this is arranged through a kamyâ. After the terms are agreed on, the kamyâ takes some parched rice and curds and goes to the man's house, and presents them to him, and then brings him back to the woman's house. The man is called gharjamai, because he lives in his father-in-law's house, he occasionally lives there two or three years before the marriage is completed.
When the marriage ceremony takes place, the gharjamai is made to sit in the court yard, and sprinkled with water from a mango branch, and after that he presents all the friends who have assembled with betel.
339
There is another form of marriage called dângiya (at,) which is perhaps the most curious of all. If a widow is rich she selects a husband for herself, and settles with him through a kamya, the man is called a dângiya (tr). When all is arranged he goes to the widow's house at night, and strikes against the wall with a lâthi; on hearing this she comes with a dao, and cuts the string round his loins, and catching his hand takes him in and feasts him. He says with tears, "Rice boiled from uncleaned grain and pulse for vegetables is the food of a dângiyâ, he has lived all his life in his father's house;" he is then considered to be married to her, and takes all the property her former husband had.
The ceremonies performed after a death are very similar to those common to all Hindus, and need not be described at length. The Palis remain impure for thirteen days afterwards, some of them burn and others bury their dead, this depends on the custom of the family.
At the birth of a child the whole family remains unclean for five days, which is called Pânchi (fr). Neither the gharbhardhân गर्भधान or panchamrita (पंचामृत ) ceremonies are known to them. On the third day after the birth a fire is lighted in the house where it took place, and the nurse a Hariani scatters the ashes on the ground, the house itself is thoroughly cleaned, this is called Dhyulmusi
(). On the fifth day the whole house and
its furniture and all the clothes of the family are cleaned, and a barber is brought who shaves the whole family; the mother is then made to sit down in the courtyard and the child's umbilical cord is put on it, and covered with khair (-saline ashes of plantain leaves). Some turmeric (C) and five cowries are also put with it. The woman faces the cast and the barber the west, and the plantain leaf is put between them. The barber first cuts the woman's nails, and puts the parings on the plantain leaf, and then washes the child, and shaves the father's head, and after that the child is again bathed and shaved, this is called dokâmâ (). The hair which is shaved from the head of the father is collected and put on the plantain leaf, and the whole is afterwards burnt. The barber and father then bathe together, and the father distributes food to all the people who are assembled, and gives the barber some rice and curds, he also makes him and the nurse a present. The mother next places her child in a winnowing fan (T) and
