83. Taking food at initiation.
When an outsider is admitted to the caste the rite is usually connected with food. A man who is to be admitted to the Dahāit caste must clean his house, break his earthen cooking-vessels and buy new ones, and give a feast to the caste-fellows in his house. He sits and takes food with them, and when the meal is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest and eats it, and drinks a drop of water from his leaf-cup. After this he cannot be readmitted to his own caste. A new Mehtar or sweeper gives water to and takes bread from each casteman. In Mandla a new convert to the Panka caste vacates his house and the caste panchāyat or committee go and live in it, in order to purify it. He gives them a feast inside the house, while he himself stays outside. Finally he is permitted to eat with the panchāyat in his own house in order to mark his admission into the caste. A candidate for admission in the Mahli caste has to eat a little of the leavings of the food of each of the castemen at a feast. The community of robbers known as Badhak or Baoria formerly dwelt in the Oudh forests. They were accustomed to take omens from the cry of the jackal, and they may probably have venerated it as representing the spirit of the forest and as a fellow-hunter. They were called jackal-eaters, and it was said that when an outsider was admitted to one of their bands he was given jackal’s flesh to eat.
Again, the rite of initiation or investiture with the sacred thread appears to be the occasion of the admission of a boy to the caste community. Before this he is not really a member of the caste and may eat any kind of food. The initiation is called by the Brāhmans the second birth, and appears to be the birth of the soul or spirit. After it the boy will eat the sacrificial food at the caste feasts and be united with the members of the caste and their god. The bodies of children who have not been initiated are buried and not burnt. The reason seems to be that their spirits will not go to the god nor be united with the ancestors, but will be born again. Formerly such children were often buried in the house or courtyard so that their spirits might be born again in the same family. The lower castes sometimes consider the rite of ear-piercing as the initiation and sometimes marriage. Among the Panwār Rājpūts a child is initiated when about two years old by being given cooked rice and milk to eat. The initiation cannot for some reason be performed by the natural father, but must be done by a guru or spiritual father, who should thereafter be regarded with a reverence equal to or even exceeding that paid to the natural father.