ngs of food upon them;
and at funerals he takes the cloth which covers the corpse on its
way to the burning-_ghat_. In Nimar the Korkus and Balahis each
have a separate burying-ground which is known as Murghata. [110] The
Katias weave the finer kinds of cloth and rank a little higher than
the others. In Burhanpur, as already stated, the caste are known as
Bunkar, and they are probably identical with the Bunkars of Khandesh;
Bunkar is simply an occupational term meaning a weaver.

2. Marriage.

The caste have the usual system of exogamous groups, some of which
are named after villages, while the designations of others are
apparently nicknames given to the founder of the clan, as Bagmar, a
tiger-killer, Bhagoria, a runaway, and so on. They employ a Brahman to
calculate the horoscopes of a bridal couple and fix the date of their
wedding, but if he says the marriage is inauspicious, they merely
obtain the permission of the caste _panchayat_ and celebrate it on
a Saturday or Sunday. Apparently, however, they do not consult real
Brahmans, but merely priests of their own caste whom they call Balahi
Brahmans. These Brahmans are, nevertheless, said to recite the Satya
Narayan Katha. They also have _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors, being
members of the caste who have joined the mendicant orders; and Bhats
or genealogists of their own caste who beg at their weddings. They
have the practice of serving for a wife, known as Gharjamai or
Lamjhana. When the pauper suitor is finally married at the expense
of his wife's father, a marriage-shed is erected for him at the house
of some neighbour, but his own family are not invited to the wedding.

After marriage a girl goes to her husband's house for a few days and
returns. The first Diwali or Akha-tij festival after the wedding must
also be passed at the husband's house, but consummation is not effected
until the _aina_ or _gauna_ ceremony is performed on the attainment
of puberty. The cost of a wedding is about Rs. 80 to the bridegroom's
family and Rs. 20 to the bride's family. A widow is forbidden to marry
her late husband's brother or other relatives. At the wedding she is
dressed in new clothes, and the foreheads of the couple are marked
with cowdung as a sign of purification. They then proceed by night to
the husband's village, and the woman waits till morning in some empty
building, when she enters her husband's house carrying two water-pots
on her head in token of the fertil