ay
not wear until this ceremony has been performed. Again, the sacrament
of the Meher or marriage cakes is sometimes connected with the clan
totem in India. These cakes are cooked and eaten sacramentally by all
the members of the family and their relatives, the bride and bridegroom
commencing first. Among the Kols the relatives to whom these cakes are
distributed cannot intermarry, and this indicates that the eating of
them was formerly a sacrament of the exogamous clan. The association of
the totem with the marriage cakes is sometimes clearly shown. Thus in
the Dahait caste members of the clans named after certain trees, go to
the tree at the time of their weddings and invite it to be present at
the ceremony. They offer the marriage cakes to the tree. Those of the
Nagotia or cobra clan deposit the cakes at a snake's hole. Members of
the Singh (lion) and Bagh (tiger) clans draw images of these animals on
the wall at the time of their weddings and offer the cakes to them. The
Basors of the Kulatia or somersault clan do somersaults at the time of
eating the cakes; those of the Karai Nor clan, who venerate a well,
eat the cakes at a well and not at home. Basors of the Lurhia clan,
who venerate a grinding-stone, worship this implement at the time
of eating the marriage cakes. M. Fustel de Coulanges states that
the Roman Confarreatio, or eating of a cake together by the bride
and bridegroom in the presence of the family gods of the latter,
constituted their holy union or marriage. By this act the wife was
transferred to the gods and religion of her husband. [168] Here the
gods referred to are clearly held to be the family gods, and in the
historical period it seems doubtful whether the Roman _gens_ was still
exogamous. But if the patriarchal family developed within the exogamous
clan tracing descent through males, and finally supplanted the clan as
the most important social unit, then it would follow that the family
gods were only a substitute for the clan gods, and the bride came to
be transferred to her husband's family instead of to his clan. The
marriage ceremony in Greece consisted of a common meal of a precisely
similar character, [169] and the English wedding cake seems to be a
survival of such a rite. At their weddings the Bhils make cakes of
the large millet juari, calling it Juari Mata or Mother Juari. These
cakes are eaten at the houses of the bride and bridegroom by the
members of their respective clans, and the r