the representatives of
the bridal couple throughout the marriage and to receive all presents
on their behalf. The custom is almost universal among the Hindus,
and it is possible that they are intended to act as substitutes and
to receive any strokes of evil fortune which may befall the bridal
pair at a season at which they are peculiarly liable to it. The
couple go round the sacred post, and afterwards the bridegroom daubs
the bride's forehead with red lead seven times and covers her head
with her cloth to show that she has become a married woman. After
the wedding the bridegroom's parents say to him, "Now your parents
have done everything they could for you, and you must manage your
own house." The expenditure on an average wedding is about fifteen
or twenty rupees. A widow is usually taken in marriage by her late
husband's younger brother or Dewar, or by one of his relatives. If
she marries an outsider, the Dewar realises twelve rupees from him
in compensation for her loss. But if there is no Dewar this sum is
not payable to her first husband's elder brother or her own father,
because they could not have married her and hence are not held to be
injured by a stranger doing so. If a woman is divorced and another
man wishes to marry her, he must make a similar payment of twelve
rupees to the first husband, together with a goat and liquor for the
penal feast. The Bhainas bury or burn the dead according as their
means permit.

5. Religious superstitions.

Their principal deity in Bilaspur is Nakti Devi [265] or the 'Noseless
Goddess.' For her ritual rice is placed on a square of the floor
washed with cowdung, and _ghi_ or preserved butter is poured on it and
burnt. A hen is made to eat the rice, and then its head is cut off and
laid on the square. The liver is burnt on the fire as an offering to
the deity and the head and body of the animal are then eaten. After
the death of a man a cock is offered to Nakti Devi and a hen after
that of a woman. The fowl is made to pick rice first in the yard of
the house, then on the threshold, and lastly inside the house. Thakur
Deo is the deity of cultivation and is worshipped on the day before
the autumn crops are sown. On this day all the men in the village
go to his shrine taking a measure of rice and a ploughshare. At the
same time the Baiga or village priest goes and bathes in the tank and
is afterwards carried to the assembly on a man's shoulders. Here he
makes an offering