4. Marriage and other customs
In the Central Provinces the tribe have now no exogamous groups; they avoid marriage with blood relations as far back as their memory carries them. At their weddings the couple walk round the srāwan or heavy log of wood, which is dragged over the fields before sowing to break up the larger clods of earth. In the absence of this an ordinary plough or harrow will serve as a substitute, though why the Pāsis should impart a distinctively agricultural implement into their marriage ceremony is not clear. Like the Gonds, the Pāsis celebrate their weddings at the bridegroom’s house and not at the bride’s. Before the wedding the bridegroom’s mother goes and sits over a well, taking with her seven urad cakes[5] and stalks of the plant. The bridegroom walks seven times round the well, and at each turn the parapet is marked with red and white clay and his mother throws one of the cakes and stalks into the well. Finally, the mother threatens to throw herself into the well, and the bridegroom begs her not to do so, promising that he will serve and support her. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are freely permitted. Conjugal morality is somewhat lax, and Mr. Crooke quotes a report from Pertābgarh to the effect that if a woman of a tribe become pregnant by a stranger and the child be born in the house of her father or husband, it will be accepted as a Pāsi of pure blood and admitted to all tribal privileges. The bodies of adults may be buried or burnt as convenient, but those of children or of persons dying from smallpox, cholera or snake-bite are always buried. Mourning is observed during ten days for a man and nine days for a woman, while children who die unmarried are not mourned at all.