Together we will walk round the marriage pole.
Walk the third time; marriage has taken place.
You are mine by marriage.
Walk the fifth time; marriage has taken place.
Walk the sixth time; marriage has taken place.
Walk the seventh time; marriage has taken place.
We have walked seven times; I am yours.
Walk the seventh time; you are mine.
“The couple then sit on a blanket on the ground near one of the pestles, and are completely covered with a cloth. The bride gives the groom seven little balls compounded of rice, ghee (clarified butter) and sugar, which he eats. He then gives her seven others, which she in turn eats. The process is repeated near the other pestle. The women keep on chanting all the while. Then the pair go into the house, and the cloth into which the rupee was knotted is untied, and the ceremonies for that night are over. Next day the couple are bathed separately, and feasting takes place. That evening the girl’s mother or near female relations tie to the locks on each side of her temples the curious badges, called gugri, which distinguish a married from an unmarried woman, fasten a bunch of tassels to her back hair, and girdle her with a tasselled waistband, from which is suspended a little bag, into which the bridegroom puts five rupees. These last two are donned thereafter on great occasions, but are not worn every day. The next day the girl is taken home by her new husband.” It is noted in the Mysore Census Report, 1891, that “one unique custom, distinguishing the Lambāni marriage ceremonial, is that the officiating Brāhman priest is the only individual of the masculine persuasion who is permitted to be present. Immediately after the betrothal, the females surround and pinch the priest on all sides, repeating all the time songs in their mixed Kutnī dialect. The vicarious punishment to which the solitary male Brāhman is thus subjected is said to be apt retribution for the cruel conduct, according to a mythological legend, of a Brāhman parent who heartlessly abandoned his two daughters in the jungle, as they had attained puberty before marriage. The pinching episode is notoriously a painful reality. It is said, however, that the Brāhman, willingly undergoes the operation in consideration of the fees paid for the rite.” The treatment of the Brāhman as acted before me by Lambādi women at Nandyāl, included an attempt to strip him stark naked. In the Census Report, it is stated that, at Lāmbadi weddings, the women “weep and cry aloud, and the bride and bridegroom pour milk into an ant-hill, and offer the snake which lives therein cocoanuts, flowers, and so on. Brāhmans are sometimes engaged to celebrate weddings, and, failing a Brāhman, a youth of the tribe will put on the thread, and perform the ceremony.”
The following variant of the marriage ceremonies was acted before me at Kadūr in Mysore. A pandal (booth) is erected, and beneath it two pestles or rice-pounders are set up. At the four corners, a row of five pots is placed, and the pots are covered with leafy twigs of Calotropis procera, which are tied with Calotropis fibre or cotton thread. Sometimes a pestle is set up near each row of pots. The bridal couple seat themselves near the pestles, and the ends of their cloths, with a silver coin in them, are tied together. They are then smeared with turmeric, and, after a wave-offering to ward off the evil eye, they go seven times round the pestles, while the women sing:—