stand on the curry-stone, the boy
touching the heels of the bride with his toes, and a long piece of
cloth is put round them to screen them from the public. Only their
heads and feet can be seen. A goblet full of vermilion is presented
to the boy, who dips his finger in it and makes three lines on
the forehead of the girl; and the girl does the same to the boy,
but as she has to reach him over her shoulder and cannot see him,
the boy gets it anywhere, on his face, which never fails to provoke
hearty bursts of laughter. "When this is complete," Dalton states,
"a gun is fired and then by some arrangement vessels full of water,
placed over the bower, are upset, and the young couple and those
near them receive a drenching shower-bath, the women shouting,
'The marriage is done, the marriage is done.' They now retire into
an apartment prepared for them, ostensibly to change their clothes,
but they do not emerge for some time, and when they do appear they
are saluted as man and wife."

7. Special Customs

Meanwhile the guests sit round drinking _handias_ or earthen pots full
of rice-beer. The bride and bridegroom come out and retire a second
time and are called out for the following rite. A vessel of beer
is brought and the bride carries a cupful of it to the bridegroom's
brother, but instead of giving it into his hand she deposits it on
the ground in front of him. This is to seal a kind of tacit agreement
that from that time the bridegroom's brother will not touch his
sister-in-law, and was probably instituted to mark the abolition of
the former system of fraternal polyandry, customs of an analogous
nature being found among the Khonds and Korkus. "Then," Father Dehon
continues, "comes the last ceremony, which is called _khiritengna
handia_ or the _handia_ of the story, and is considered by the Oraons
to be the true form of marriage which has been handed down to them by
their forefathers. The boy and girl sit together before the people,
and one of the elder men present rises and addressing the boy says:
'If your wife goes to fetch _sag_ and falls from a tree and breaks her
leg, do not say that she is disfigured or crippled. You will have to
keep and feed her.' Then turning to the girl: 'When your husband goes
hunting, if his arm or leg is broken, do not say, "He is a cripple,
I won't live with him." Do not say that, for you have to remain with
him. If you prepare meat, give two shares to him and keep only one for
you