I saw the ceremony of going to the puzhars on two occasions, the woman each time belonging to the Teivaliol. The most striking feature of each occasion was the obvious and intense dread of Keirt. In one case, soon after leaving the hut, the woman, Sintagars, called out for another umbrella as she feared that the tòrikwadr was not sufficient to shelter her from Keirt, and during the rest of the proceedings she held over herself both the leafy umbrella and one of the ordinary kind.
I was told that all the chief incidents of the ceremony—the rubbing on of ashes, the holding of the leaf umbrella, the pouring of water over the calf and the giving to Namav—were all designed to avert the evil influence of Keirt, which they call Keirtpudrivuti (see p. [269]).
After the woman has gone to the seclusion-hut she is visited by relatives and friends, who stand at a distance, just as they did after the hand-burning ceremony. They bring rice with them as a present and call out
Marsvut Confined sivn life mikh remaining mokh son (or kugh) (or daughter) udpatia? had you? [[327]]
“Have you had a son (or daughter) and are yet alive?” The visitors then go to the huts of the village and are entertained.
The woman and child stay in the seclusion-hut, accompanied by the husband and by a woman who is usually the assistant at the birth. If the child is not the first, the mother remains in seclusion till a few days before the next new moon, this kind of seclusion being called nâtersper. If the child is the first-born, the stay in the seclusion-hut is longer and is called kadrthersper. In this case the woman stays in the hut till a month has elapsed after the new moon following the birth. Thus Sintagars went into seclusion on Sunday, October 19th, and came out on Thursday, November 27th, 1902, exactly four weeks after the new moon of October 31st.
The proceedings on leaving the seclusion-hut are like those which take place after the seclusion following the urvatpimi ceremony, but with a few additional rites.
Among the Tartharol there is only one ceremony, called marthk maj atpimi, in which a buffalo is milked on the morning of the day by a Melgars man. Before the woman drinks the milk in the evening, another woman lays threads of tuni on leaves of kakud, and puts them on the ground before the mother, who puts them in the right side of her waist-string as when going to the seclusion-hut. After returning to the hut the woman drinks Melgars buttermilk and eats food cooked in Melgars buttermilk in exactly the same way as after the hand-burning ceremony.
Among the Teivaliol the return to ordinary life takes place in two stages, as after the hand-burning ceremony. The woman first goes to the aliars, or to the hinder part of the merkalars, after drinking water, which has been supposed to be turned into milk by pretended milking from a pregnant buffalo. I saw this ceremony on one occasion ([Fig. 47]) when the pretended milking was done by a small boy, Pongudr (52), and the supposed milk was poured into the leaves and given to the mother by a woman who had not been present in the seclusion-hut with her. The person who pretends to milk the pregnant buffalo becomes ichchil by doing so, and the reason [[328]]why a young boy was chosen for this office was that the adult members of the family might escape the disabilities attendant on this condition. On this occasion especial care was taken that the mother should sit facing the sun during the ceremony. She at first sat down with her face turned away from the sun, and she was made to turn round, so that she directly faced it. This was the exact opposite of the procedure followed when going to the seclusion-hut.
