5. Marriage.
Marriage between members of the same sept is forbidden, but the rule is not always observed. A brother’s daughter may marry a sister’s son, but not vice versa. Marriage is always adult, and overtures come from the boy’s father. The customary bride-price is twelve bullocks, but many families cannot afford this, and resort is then made to a fiction. The boy’s party make twelve models of bullocks in earth, and placing each in a leaf-plate send them to the girl’s party, who throw away two, saying that one has been eaten by a tiger, and the other has fallen into a pit and died. The remaining ten are returned to the bridegroom’s party, who throw away two, saying that they have been sold to provide liquor for the Panch. For two of the eight now left real animals are substituted, and for the other six one rupee each, and the two cattle and six rupees are sent back to the bride’s party as the real bride-price. Poor families, however, give four rupees instead of the two cattle, and ten rupees is among them considered as the proper price, though even this is reduced on occasion. The marriage party goes from the bride’s to the bridegroom’s house, and consists of women only. The men do not go, as they say that on one occasion all the men of a Kharia wedding procession were turned into stones, and they fear to undergo a similar fate. The real reason may probably be that the journey of the bride is a symbolic reminiscence of the time when she was carried off by force, and hence it would be derogatory for the men to accompany her. The bridegroom comes out to meet the bride riding on the shoulders of his brother-in-law or paternal aunt’s husband, who is known as Dherha. He touches the bride, and both of them perform a dance. At the wedding the bridegroom stands on a plough-yoke, and the bride on a grinding-slab, and the Dherha walks seven times round them sprinkling water on them from a mango-leaf. The couple are shut up alone for the night, and next morning the girl goes to the river to wash her husband’s clothes. On her return a fowl is killed, and the couple drink two drops of its blood in water mixed with turmeric, as a symbol of the mixing of their own blood. A goat is killed, and they step in its blood and enter their houses. The caste-people say to them, “Whenever a Kharia comes to your house, give him a cup of water and tobacco and food if you have it,” and the wedding is over.