gle,
and if the child then takes to the breast they give away the bangle
to a Brahman. The sixth day after a child is born the paternal aunt
prepares lamp-black from a lamp fed with melted butter and rubs it
on the child's eyes and receives a small present.

3. Funeral rites.

The period of mourning or impurity after a death must terminate
with a feast to the caste-men, and it continues until this is
given. Consequently the other caste-men subscribe for a poor member,
so that he may give the feast and resume his ordinary avocations. On
this occasion one of the guests puts a small fish in a leaf-cup full
of water, which no doubt represents the spirit of the deceased, and
all the mourners touch this cup and are freed from their impurity. A
Brahman is also invited, who lights a lamp fed with melted butter and
then asks for a cow or some other valuable present as a recompense for
his service of blowing out the lamp. Until this is done the Dhakars
think that the soul of the departed is tortured by the flame of the
lamp. If the Brahman is pleased, he pours some curds over the lamp
and this acts as a cooling balm to the soul. When a member of the
family dies the mourners shave the whole head with beard and moustache.

4. Occupation and social status.

The Dhakars are mainly engaged in cultivation as farmservants and
labourers. Like the Halbas, they consider it a sin to heat or forge
iron, looking upon the metal as sacred. They eat the flesh of clean
animals, but abstain from both pigs and chickens, and some also do not
eat the peacock. A man as well as a woman is permanently expelled for
adultery with a person of lower caste, the idea of this rule being
no doubt to prevent degradation in the status of the caste from the
admission of the offspring of such unions. If one Dhakar beats another
with a shoe, both are temporarily put out of caste. But if a man
seduces a caste-man's wife and is beaten with a shoe by the husband,
he is permanently expelled, while the husband is readmitted after
a feast. On being received back into caste intercourse an offender
is purified by drinking water in which the image of a local god has
been dipped or the Raja of Bastar has placed his toe. Like other low
castes of mixed origin, they are very particular about each other's
status and will only accept cooked food from families who are well
known to them. At caste feasts each family or group of families cooks
for itself, and in some