DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2374#0428
416
A JOURNEY FROM MADRAS THROUGH
CHAPTER sacrifice, and a Nair is employed to kill it before the idols. The
■ 31' same Nair acts as Pujari for the god Mundien, adorns the stone
Dec. is. with flowers, anoints it with oil, and presents it with fruit. A Nam-
buri is employed to be Pujciri to Bagawutty, and this is the only
occasion on which the Tiars give that class of men any employment.
The Panikins attend at marriages, £>ut do not read any thing on
these occasions. The Tiars seem to be entirely ignorant of a state
of existence after death. Some of them burn, and some of them
bury the dead. They are permitted to eat swine, goats, fowls, and
fish; and have no objection to eat animals that have died a natural
death. They may also drink distilled liquors, but not palm wine.
In fact, they are not so much addicted to intoxication as the Nairs.
In wealthy families, each man takes a wife; but this being consi-
dered as expensive, in poor families the brothers marry one wife in
common, and sleep with her by turns. If either of the brothers
becomes discontented, he may marry another woman. The whole
family lives in the same house, even should it contain two women;
and it is reckoned a proof of a very bad temper, where two brothers
live in separate houses. It must be observed, that in Malabar a
family of children are not reckoned burthensome; so that the Tiars
are induced to adopt this uncommon kind of wedlock, merely to
save the trifling expense of several marriages, the whole amount of
one of which is as follows: four Fanams (%s.) given to the girl's
parents, a piece of cloth given to herself, and a feast given to the
relations. Many of the women are thus unprovided with husbands, a
thing very uncommon in India; and, their remarkable beauty ex-
posing them to much temptation, a great many Tiatis in the sea-
port towns are reduced to prostitution. Women continue to be
marriageable after the age of puberty, and after the death of a
former husband. Adulteresses are flogged, but not divorced, unless
the crime has been committed with a man of another cast. A Nam-
buri, who condescended to commit fornication with a Tiati, would
formerly have been deprived of his eyes, and the girl and all her
A JOURNEY FROM MADRAS THROUGH
CHAPTER sacrifice, and a Nair is employed to kill it before the idols. The
■ 31' same Nair acts as Pujari for the god Mundien, adorns the stone
Dec. is. with flowers, anoints it with oil, and presents it with fruit. A Nam-
buri is employed to be Pujciri to Bagawutty, and this is the only
occasion on which the Tiars give that class of men any employment.
The Panikins attend at marriages, £>ut do not read any thing on
these occasions. The Tiars seem to be entirely ignorant of a state
of existence after death. Some of them burn, and some of them
bury the dead. They are permitted to eat swine, goats, fowls, and
fish; and have no objection to eat animals that have died a natural
death. They may also drink distilled liquors, but not palm wine.
In fact, they are not so much addicted to intoxication as the Nairs.
In wealthy families, each man takes a wife; but this being consi-
dered as expensive, in poor families the brothers marry one wife in
common, and sleep with her by turns. If either of the brothers
becomes discontented, he may marry another woman. The whole
family lives in the same house, even should it contain two women;
and it is reckoned a proof of a very bad temper, where two brothers
live in separate houses. It must be observed, that in Malabar a
family of children are not reckoned burthensome; so that the Tiars
are induced to adopt this uncommon kind of wedlock, merely to
save the trifling expense of several marriages, the whole amount of
one of which is as follows: four Fanams (%s.) given to the girl's
parents, a piece of cloth given to herself, and a feast given to the
relations. Many of the women are thus unprovided with husbands, a
thing very uncommon in India; and, their remarkable beauty ex-
posing them to much temptation, a great many Tiatis in the sea-
port towns are reduced to prostitution. Women continue to be
marriageable after the age of puberty, and after the death of a
former husband. Adulteresses are flogged, but not divorced, unless
the crime has been committed with a man of another cast. A Nam-
buri, who condescended to commit fornication with a Tiati, would
formerly have been deprived of his eyes, and the girl and all her