THE PEOPLE.
Round about Koraput, their marriage ceremonies are of the typical kind. The parents of the boy deposit two pots of liquor and some rice at the house of the girl they want their son to marry and, if these are not thrown into the street, follow up their move by taking more liquor and rice, a new cloth and money as the price of the girl. A dinner follows in token that the match is arranged and next day the bride goes to the groom's village in state. Outside the latter 's house two poles are planted, between which a pumpkin is suspended from a string. As the bride's party approach, this is cut down with a tangi (axe), the party enter the house, the bride is given a new cloth, and liquor is liberally distributed. Cheered by this, the wedding party dance most of the night through, and next day, after a caste dinner, the bride is formally handed over to her husband in the presence of the janni (priest) and headman of the village.
Round Jeypore, however, the ceremonies differ considerably and as they doubtless change again every few miles, it would be profitless to point out the variations.
The Banda Porojas are the best recognized of the seven Poroja sections, because they have special ways of their own and live in a definite and prescribed locality in what is known as the Juangar mutta of Malkanagiri taluk, south-west of the falls of the Machéru referred to on p. 12. They are called 'naked' because the women (the men are not distinctive in appearance) shave their heads completely, wear nothing above the waist except brass ornaments and strings of beads, and have for their only garment a strip of coloured cloth woven from jungle fibre (Asclepias gigantea, apparently) eight inches wide and two feet long which they tie round their middles in such a way as to leave the left thigh bare both in front and behind. They explain this scanty costume by saying that some of their ancestresses once came upon Síta when she was bathing in the Machéru with very little on, and laughed at her; and that she pronounced a curse upon them if they ever wore more clothes than she was wearing then Mr. H. G. Turner, it is said, once induced one of them to wear a cloth, but she died soon after and none of the others has since dared to follow her example. Mr. H. C. Daniel, Assistant Superintendent of Police at Koraput, who provided some of the
foregoing particulars, also gives the following account of the extraordinary manner in which matches are made among these people, the method being a rude variant of the custom prevalent among many of the hill tribes whereby a boy desirous of marriage goes at night to the dhangadi basa, or hut set aside for
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