4 Migratory Tribes of [No. 145. 



ed garments assisting to set off their shape. A boddice (called Kan- 

 terie) fitting neatly to the form in front, reaches from the neck to the 

 hip, conceals the bosom, but is left open behind ; this with a gown 

 (petia) fastened by a noose beneath the waist, and falling in loose folds 

 to the feet, and scarf (cadhi) thrown carelessly over the shoulder, 

 completes their dress, which is made of cloth dyed with bright and 

 varied colours. From their hair, and the tapes that bind their dress, 

 are suspended long strings of courie shells, massive rings of silver clasp 

 the ankles, and the arms, from the wrist to the shoulder, are loaded 

 with broad rings of ivory, cut from the elephants' tusks, and dyed with 

 varied dyes. The ceremonies attending the marriage of a widow 

 are, as is usual among the natives of the east, few ; the gift of a new 

 cloth, and the selection of a fortunate hour on which to conduct the 

 bride home, comprise the whole. With the young bride, a more 

 lengthened rejoicing is made. On the marriage being assented 

 to, the bridegroom pays one or two hundred rupees to the parents 

 of the bride, and at the early part of the day, which the brahman 

 who has been consulted has pronounced auspicious, two pyramids are 

 constructed, by placing earthen pots one above another, ten or twelve 

 feet apart, a bundle of firewood is laid behind each pyramid, and two 

 wooden pestles, used by the women of every house in India to clean 

 the grain, are planted perpendicularly between. The ceremonies last 

 five days, during which the friends are feasted, the bride and bride- 

 groom sitting on the ground between the pyramids, and on the fifth 

 day, after being bathed by their respective male and female relations, 

 the bridegroom leads to his tent his bride. The next morning the 

 young wife rises early, and carrying the hand-mill near the feet of her 

 husband's parents, there grinds the corn* necessary for the meals of the 



* Shortly after midnight, the women in the east rise and begin to grind corn for the 

 family, cheering themselves in their lonely task by singing their labour songs. In 

 several parts of Scripture this custom of grinding the corn for the day's consumption 

 is noticed. " In the day when the grinders cease because they are few, and the doors 

 be shut in the streets because the sound of the grinding is low." — Ecc. xii. 3, 4. 

 See also Ex. xi. 5. and Is. xlvii. 1, where it says, " Come down and sit in the dust, O 

 virgin daughter of Babylon ; sit on the ground ; there is no throne, O daughter of the 

 Chaldeans, take the millstones and grind meal ;" and in Matt, xxiv. 41, it is said, "two 

 women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left." One 

 person can generally grind sufficient for the use of a small family, but where much is 

 required, two women, as noticed in the Scripture, sit on the ground with the millstones 

 between them. 



