The ordeal of hot oil required the adversaries to put their middle fingers in boiling oil and water mixed with cow dung; if both parties got burnt the land in dispute was equally divided; otherwise the uninjured party got the whole land.
The other four modes consisted of the disputants partaking of some rice boiled from the paddy of the field in dispute, breaking an earthen vessel and eating of a cocoanut that was placed on the portion of the land in question, removing rushes laid along the boundary line in dispute, or striking each other with the mud of the disputed field; and the claim was decided against the person to whom some misfortune fell within 7 to 14 days.
There were two other forms which had fallen into disuse even in ancient times owing to the severity of the tests viz. carrying a red hot iron in hand seven paces without being burnt, and picking some coins out of a vessel containing a cobra without being bitten.
CHAPTER XII.
RITES OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.
When a mother is pregnant she avoids looking at deformed persons, or ugly images and pictures, fearing the impression she gets from them may influence the appearance of her offspring; during this delicate period she generally pounds rice with a pestle, as the exertion is supposed to assist delivery, and for the same purpose a few hours before the birth of the child all the cupboards in the house are unlocked. For her to cling to, when the pains of child-birth are unbearable, a rope tied to the roof hangs by the mat or bedside.
The water that the child is washed in after birth is poured on to the foot of a young tree, and the latter is remembered and pointed out to commemorate the event; a little while after the infant is ushered into the world a rite takes place, when a drop of human milk obtained from some one other than the mother mixed with a little gold is given to the babe (rankiri kata gânavâ), and the little child’s ability to learn and pronounce well is assured.
When the sex of the child is known, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown from one side of the house to the other; if a girl, an ikle broom; those who are not in the room pretend to find out whether it is a she or a he by its first cry, believing it is louder in the case of the former than of the latter. The cries of the babe are drowned by those of the nurse, lest the spirits of the forest become aware of its presence and inflict injury on it.
At the birth of the first born cocoanut shells are pounded in a mortar.