The dead are either buried or burnt. When a man is dying they put
basil leaves and boiled rice and milk in his mouth, and a little
piece of gold, or if they have not got gold they put a rupee in his
mouth and take it out again. For ten days after a death, food in
a leaf-cup and a lamp are set out in the house-yard every evening,
and every morning water and a tooth-stick. On the tenth day they are
taken away and consigned to a river. In Chhattisgarh on the third
day after death the soul is brought back. The women put a lamp on a
red earthen pot and go to a tank or stream at night. The fish are
attracted towards the light, and one of them is caught and put in
the pot, which is then filled with water. It is brought home and set
beside a small heap of flour, and the elders sit round it. The son
of the deceased or other near relative anoints himself with turmeric
and picks up a stone. This is washed with the water from the pot,
and placed on the floor, and a sacrifice of a cock or hen is made to
it according as the deceased was a man or a woman. The stone is then
enshrined in the house as a family god, and the sacrifice of a fowl
is repeated annually. It is supposed apparently that the dead man's
spirit is brought back to the house in the fish, and then transferred
to the stone by washing this with the water.