woman). May he become united with the men of his clan and caste."
The funeral rites of the Udayas differ in some important details from those of the Badaga sub-division. The buffalo catching, and leading the animal round the corpse, are omitted. But a steer and heifer are selected, and branded on the thigh, by means of a hot iron, with the lingam and other emblems. Bedecked with cloths and jewels, they are led to the side of the corpse, and made to stand on a blanket spread on the ground. They are treated as if they were lingams, and puja is done to them by offering cocoanuts and betel leaves, and throwing flowers over them. Round their necks kankanams (marriage threads) are tied. They are made to turn so as to face away from the corpse, and their tails are placed in the hands thereof. An elder then proceeds with the recitation of the dead person's sins. The Udayas bury their dead in a sitting posture in a cell dug out of the side of the grave, and, like the Irulas, prefer to use a grave in which a previous burial has taken place. At the four corners of the grave they place in the ground a plant of Leucas aspera, and pass a cotton thread laterally and diagonally across the grave, leaving out the side opposite the cell. Two men descend into the grave, and deposit the corpse in its resting place with two lighted lamps.
In 1905, an elaborate Badaga memorial ceremony for ancestors called manavalai, which takes place at long intervals, was celebrated on the Nilgiris. I gather from the notes of a Native official that an enormous car, called elu kudi teru ( seven-storeyed car) was built of wood and bamboo, and decorated with silk and woollen fabrics, flags, and umbrellas. Inside the ground floor were a cot with a mattress and pillow, and the stem of
