Widow Marriage. 10. Widow marriage in the Sagâi form is allowed. When a man proposes to marry a widow, he can do so with the consent of the head of the family. Both parties give a tribal dinner, and the man rubs some oil on the woman’s head and some red lead on the parting of her hair, and brings her home. When he brings her home he has to entertain the clansmen. The levirate is permitted, with the usual restriction that it is only the younger brother of her late husband who is entitled to claim her. It is only on his renouncing his right to her that she can marry an outsider. If she have children by her first husband, they do not accompany her to her new home, but remain with their father’s brother. The widow, on re-marriage, has no rights to her first husband’s property. If the children are very young, the uncle, who maintains them, gets half their property as his remuneration. In the same way if their uncle does not care to look after them, and they go to their step-father, he receives half their inheritance, and in this case the children are considered to be his own.
Adoption. 11. Adoption is permitted to a sonless man or one whose son is permanently expelled from caste; but there is no idea of religious merit in adoption. The son adopted must be of the sept (kuri) of the adopter, and is in most cases a brother’s son. Having once adopted he cannot adopt again as long as the adopted son is alive. A bachelor, an ascetic, or a blind man cannot adopt, nor can a married woman without the leave of her husband, and under no circumstances has the widow this power. A man may give his eldest, but not his only son, in adoption to another. There is no condition of age in the boy to be adopted. Girls cannot be adopted. The adopted [[6]]son is not excluded from succeeding to his natural father, and will do so if he have no other son. If a natural son be born after adoption, both share equally in the estate.
These are the rules as stated in a meeting of the caste, but they obviously represent the influence of their Hindu neighbours. It is very doubtful if the real Agariyas have any idea of adoption.
Succession. 12. The rules of succession are very similar to those of the Mânjhis (q.v.). When a man dies leaving a widow or widows, a son or sons, a daughter or daughters, brothers or other relatives, the sons alone inherit, and primogeniture is so far observed that the eldest son gets one animal or article, an ox, a brass pot, etc., in excess of the others. The sons take their shares per capita. When a man leaves only a sonless widow, his brothers inherit with the obligation of maintaining the widow for her lifetime or until she marries again. She can be expelled for unchastity. Stepsons inherit only the amount of their father’s property which their step-father may have received, but he is bound to support and marry them. Many of the elaborate rules which the tribe pretend to observe are derived from Hindu practice; and it is obvious that it is seldom difficult for an Agariya to dispose of his simple property.
Relationship. 13. The relations of the husband are regarded as relations of the wife, and vice versâ. The scheme of relationship agrees with that of the Kols (q.v.).
Birth ceremonies. 14. There are no ceremonies during pregnancy. Contrary to ordinary Hindu custom the woman lies on a bed facing east during delivery. She is attended during seclusion by the Chamâin midwife, who cuts the cord and buries it outside under the eaves of the house. The mother is dosed with a decoction of dill (ajwâin), and gets in the evening a mess of boiled sâwân, millet and konhrauri or balls made of urad pulse, and cucumber (konhra). On the sixth day the clothes of the mother and all the household are washed by one of them. They do not employ a Dhobi which, as the birth pollution is much dreaded, marks a very low stage of ceremonial purity. On the same day mother and child are bathed by the midwife, who gets a loin cloth (dhoti) as her fee. The mother then cooks for the family and a few of the neighbouring clansmen. On the same day the delivery room (saur) is cleaned and replastered by the sister of the husband (nanad), who receives a fee of four annas for her trouble. On the twelfth day the clansmen and their wives who live in the neighbourhood are fed. [[7]]
Couvade. 15. The husband is allowed to do no work on the day his wife is delivered, and has to take the first sip of the cleansing draught which is given her after delivery. He does not cohabit with his wife for a month after her confinement.
Puberty ceremonies. 16. There is no regular ceremony on arrival at puberty. The only rite in the nature of initiation is the ear-boring, which is done both for boys and girls in the fifth year. Up to this they may eat from the hands of a person of any caste. After this ceremony they must conform to tribal usage.
Death ceremonies. 17. The dead, except young children and those dying of small-pox, are cremated in the jungle. This is done very carelessly, and in times of epidemic disease the corpses are merely exposed in the jungle to be eaten by wild animals. The corpse is laid face upwards on the pyre with the feet to the south. The nearest kinsman moves five times round the pyre and touches the face of the corpse five times with a straw torch. As soon as the pyre blazes all go and bathe. Then they fill their vessels (lota) with water and return to the house of the deceased, where each pours the water he has brought in the court-yard. No fire is lit and no cooking done in the house that day. The food is cooked at the house of the brother-in-law (bahnoi) of the dead man. On the tenth day the clansmen assemble at some running water, and then go and eat at the house of the deceased. The bones which remain after cremation are thrown into the nearest running stream. They are not buried, and subsequently, when convenient, conveyed to the Ganges, as is the custom with the similarly named tribe in Chota Nâgpur.[8]
Ancestor worship. 18. On the day of the Phagua (Holi) they feed a fowl with gram and kill it in the name of the sainted dead. But they recognise no deceased ancestor beyond their father and mother, in whose name after the sacrifice they pour a little water on the ground. Only the members of the family eat the flesh of the victim. They do not employ Brâhmans at funerals; they have no Srâddha, and the sister’s son has no special functions on this occasion. [[8]]