After the birth of a child the mother is unclean for five days, and
lives apart in a separate hut, which is run up for her use in the
_kuri_ or hamlet. On the sixth day she washes the feet of all the
children in the _kuri_, feeds them and then returns to her husband's
hut. When a child is born in a moving _tanda_ or camp, the same
rule is observed, and for five days the mother walks alone after the
camp during the daily march. The caste bury the bodies of unmarried
persons and those dying of smallpox and burn the others. Their rites
of mourning are not strict, and are observed only for three days. The
Banjaras have a saying: "Death in a foreign land is to be preferred,
where there are no kinsfolk to mourn, and the corpse is a feast
for birds and animals"; but this may perhaps be taken rather as an
expression of philosophic resignation to the fate which must be in
store for many of them, than a real preference, as with most people
the desire to die at home almost amounts to an instinct.