THE RELIGION" AND CUSTOMS OP THE URAONS. 165 



he can, but if he has not complied with the custom of giving- them a cloth every year, he 

 has to make up for it and pay the mother what she has spent to clothe the children. 



For saga/ or second marriage, the ceremonies are very simple. The parents of the 

 girl bring her to the house of her husband. Whilst they drink rice-beer the boy and girl 

 are made to sit in front of each other, and they anoint each other with oil, the boy with his 

 left hand and the girl with her right hand. After that, one of the women of the village 

 comes and puts vermilion on the forehead of the boy saying, " Feed this woman : she is 

 yours : accept this in her name." For the first sagai the price of the girl is Rs. 3^ ; the 

 second Rs. 2^ ; the third Rs. 1^; and subsequent sagais only eight annas ! 



Cases of adultery are comparatively rare among them. When offenders are caught 

 they have to pay a heavy fine if they can, or if they cannot they get a smaller fine 

 and a beating. 



After marriage the brothers remain as long as they can in the house of their father 

 with their respective wives. As their houses are very small they live huddled together 

 like Noah and his family in the Ark. Of course there are some bickerings among the 

 women, but on the whole the system works admirably, and those are the houses which 

 prosper best in which the brothers remain the longest together. 



Their law of succession, of course, is not very complicated. The eldest boy gets 

 about one-fifth more than the others, who get less shares according to age. When 

 one of them dies his wife may choose to remain in the house of her father-in-law or go 

 away. If she remains she is treated like one of the house. If she goes away with the 

 child she gets the share of her husband. But if the boy dies or if she remarries, the boy's 

 share returns to his uncles, in the first case to remain their property, and in the second 

 case to be given back to the boy when he marries. If she goes away without taking the 

 boy with her she gets nothing at all. If a boy follows his mother when she makes sagai 

 he has no right to the fortune of his stepfather even if he dies without male issue, but he 

 is entitled to his pogri like a ghar damad. If a boy is ghar damad in a house where there 

 are only girls, and if he remains working in the house ol his father-in-law till he dies, he 

 has a right besides his pogri to a pair of bullocks, one cow with a calf, plus the hatchet, 

 plough, khodali and sickle with which he has worked. In all their hereditary disputes 

 they can have recourse to the panchayat, to whose decision they are bound to 

 adhere. 



The money remains always in the keeping of the master and mistress of the house, 

 the father or mother of the family. They bury it either in the house or in the garden, 

 and sometimes in the fields, no one knows where. Generally, when they feel that they are 

 dying, they call their pet son and tell him where the treasure is buried. Very often they 

 say nothing, so that much money is lost in this fashion. They believe that after death, the 

 Pachbal or the light shades of the ancestors like to come and sit on these treasures, and it 

 seems they sit very hard. When the children want to unearth the treasure, they say that 

 they can reach the vessel containing the rupees, but as the work of excavating is pro- 

 gressing so the treasure is sinking deeper and deeper as if dragged down by an invisible 

 hand. But it is only in time of great distress that they will dare to try and get at hidden 

 treasure, the secret of which has not been revealed by their parents. There is much 



