A child receives its name on the seventh, ninth, or eleventh day. A sumptuous meal is given to the community, and the grandfather (paternal, if possible) milks a cow, and pours the milk into a brass cup placed in the milk-house. With it a little cooked sāmai grain is mixed. The babe is washed with water brought from a stream; marked on the forehead with sacred ashes; a turmeric-dyed thread is tied round its waist; a silver or iron bangle placed on its wrists; and a silver bead tied by a thread round its neck. Thus decorated, the infant is taken up by the oldest man of the village who is not a widower, who gives it a name, which has already been chosen. The elder, and the child’s parents and grandparents then place a little milk in its mouth.
Children, both male and female, go through a shaving ceremony, usually when they are seven months old. The infant is seated in the lap of a Badaga, and, after water has been applied to its head by a Badaga or a barber, the maternal uncle removes some of the hair with a razor, and then hands it over to another Badaga or a barber to complete the operation.
Of the death rites as carried out by the Badaga sub-division, the following note was recorded during a visit to Kotagiri. When death is drawing near, a gold coin, called Vīrarāya hana or fanam, dipped in butter or ghī, is given to the dying man to swallow. If he is too far gone to be capable of swallowing, the coin is, according to Mr. Natesa Sastri, tied round the arm. But our informants told us that this is not done at the present day. “If,” Mr. Gover writes,[13] “the tiny coin slips down, well. He will need both gold and ghī, the one to sustain his strength in the dark journey to the river of death, the other to fee the guardian of the fairy-like bridge that spans the dreaded tide. If sense remains to the wretched man, he knows that now his death is nigh. Despair and the gold make recovery impossible, and there are none who have swallowed the Birianhana, and yet have lived. If insensibility or deathly weakness make it impossible for the coin to pass the thorax, it is carefully bound in cloth, and tied to the right arm, so that there may be nought to hinder the passage of a worthy soul into the regions of the blessed.” The giving of the coin to the dying man is apparently an important item, and, in the Badaga folk-tales, a man on the point of death is made to ask for a Vīrarāya fanam. When life is extinct, the corpse is kept within the house until the erection of the funeral car (gudikattu) is completed. Though Gover states that the burning must not be delayed more than twenty-four hours, at the present day the Badagas postpone the funeral till all the near relations have assembled, even if this necessitates the keeping of the corpse for two or three days. Cremation may take place on any day, except Tuesday. News of a death is conveyed to distant hamlets (hattis) by a Toreya, who is paid a rupee for his services. On approaching a hamlet, he removes his turban, to signify the nature of his errand, and, standing on the side of a hill, yells out “Dho! Dho! who is in the hamlet?” Having imparted his news, he proceeds on his journey to the next hamlet. On the morning of the day fixed for the funeral, the corpse is taken on a charpoy or native cot to an open space, and a buffalo led thrice round it. The right hand of the corpse is then lifted up, and passed over the horns of the buffalo. A little milk is drawn, and poured into the mouth of the corpse. Prior to this ceremony, two or three buffaloes may be let loose, and one of them captured, after the manner of the Todas, brought near the corpse, and conducted round the cot. The funeral car is built up in five to eleven tiers, decorated with cloths and streamers, and one tier must be covered with black chintz. At the funeral of a young man, the Rev. A. C. Clayton noticed that the car was surmounted by a flag, and hung about with bread, oranges, plantains, and the bag containing the books which the youth had used in the Basel Mission School.[14] By the poorer members of the community the car is replaced by a cot covered with cloth, and surmounted by five umbrellas. Immediately after the buffalo ceremony, the corpse is carried to the car, and placed in the lowest storey thereof, washed, and dressed in coat and turban. A new dhupati (coarse cloth) is wrapped round it. Two silver coins (Japanese yens or rupees) are stuck on the forehead. Beneath the cot are placed a crowbar, and baskets containing cakes, parched paddy, tobacco, chick pea (Cicer arietinum), jaggery and sāmai flour. A number of women, relations and friends of the dead man, then make a rush to the cot, and, sitting on it round the corpse, keep on waiting, while a woman near its head rings a bell. When one batch is tired, it is replaced by another. Badaga men then pour in in large numbers, and salute the corpse by touching the head, Toreyas and female relations touching the feet. Of those who salute, a few place inside the dhupati a piece of white cloth with red and yellow stripes, which has been specially prepared for the purpose. All then proceed to dance round the car to the music of the Kota band, near male relations removing their turban or woollen night cap, as a mark of respect, during the first three revolutions. Most of the male dancers are dressed up in gaudy petticoats and smart turbans. “No woman,” Mr. Natesa Sastri writes, “mingles in the funeral dance if the dead person is a man, but, if the deceased is a woman, one old woman, the nearest relative of the dead, takes part in it.” But, at the funerals of two men which we witnessed, a few women danced together with the men. Usually the tribesmen continue to arrive until 2 or 3 P.M. Relations collect outside the village, and advance in a body towards the car, some, especially the sons-in-law of the dead man, riding on ponies, some of them carrying sāmai grain. As they approach the car, they shout “Ja! hoch; Ja! hoch.” The Muttu Kotas bring a double iron sickle with imitation buffalo horns on the tip, which is placed, with a hatchet, buguri (flute), and walking stick, on the car or on the ground beside it. When all are assembled, the cot is carried to an open space between the house and the burning-ground, followed by the car and a party of women carrying the baskets containing grain, etc. The car is then stripped of its trappings, and hacked to pieces. The widow is brought close to the cot, and removes her nose ornament (elemukkuthi), and other jewels. At both the funerals which we witnessed, the widow had a narrow strip of coloured chintz over her shoulders. Standing near the corpse, she removed a bit of wire from her ear-rings, a lock of hair, and a palm leaf roll from the lobe of the ear, and tied them up in the cloth of her dead husband. After her, the sisters of the dead man cut off a lock of hair, and, in like manner, tied it in the cloth. Women attached to a man by illegitimate ties sometimes also cut off a lock of hair, and, tying it to a twig of Dodonæa viscosa, place it inside the cloth. Very impressive is the recitation, or after-death confession of a dead man’s sins by an elder of the tribe standing at the head of the corpse, and rapidly chanting the following lines, or a variation thereof, while he waves his right hand during each line towards the feet. The reproduction of the recitation in my phonograph never failed to impress the daily audience of Badagas, Kotas and Todas.
This is the death of Āndi.
In his memory the calf of the cow Belle has been set free.
From this world to the other.
He goes in a car.
Everything the man did in this world.
All the sins committed by his ancestors.
All the sins committed by his forefathers.