INNOCENT AMUSEMENTS 229
after him his wife comes up and performs the same sacrifice, only with this difference, that instead of using boiled rice, she uses parched rice. This is, I believe, the only occasion on which a woman can take an active part in any of these
sacrifices, which the Brahmins hold to be most sacred and most solemn.
The only remarkable ceremony which takes place on the fourth day is the nalangu, in which the newly married couple rub each other ' s legs three times with powdered saffron. I do not in the least understand the meaning of this ceremony. I fancy its only object is to kill time.
Europeans under similar circumstances would spend it in drinking, often to excess; or in gambling, dancing, singing
songs in honour of love and wine, sometimes even in carrying on intrigues with the object of loosening the sacred marriage tie, which it is the object of marriage
ceremonies to make secure. The Hindus spend their wedding-days more wisely in religious observances, of which the greater number are well calculated to leave a lasting impression on the minds of those attending them.
The innocent and artless games with which they amuse themselves afford them none the less pleasure because they
are so. In the domestic festivities of the Brahmins, decency, modesty, purity, and reserve are always conspicuous. This is the more remarkable as they obey a religion whose dogmas are for the most part saturated with immorality.
The fifth day is chiefly occupied in dismissing, with all the customary formalities, the gods, the planets, the great penitents, the ancestors, and all the other divinities who have been invited to the feast. They dismiss even the kankanam, that is to say, the two pieces of saffron attached to the wrists of the newly made husband and wife. Finally, the god of the mantapam, that is to say of the pandal, is himself dismissed. Then follows the distribution of presents, which vary in value according to the means of the host.
The purohita who has taken the most prominent part, and after him the women who have been singing the whole time from beginning to end, carry off the lion ' s share of these bounties. I must just mention that the songs which arc sung at these ceremonies contain nothing obscene or even erotic; they are either a sort of explanation of the