The caste usually bury the dead with the feet to the north, like the
Gonds and other aboriginal tribes. They say that heaven is situated
towards the north, and the dead man should be placed in a position to
start for that direction. Another explanation is that the head of the
earth lies towards the north, and yet another that in the Satyug or
beginning of time the sun rose in the north; and in each succeeding
Yug or era it has veered round the compass until now in the Kali Yug
or Iron Age it rises in the east. In Chhattisgarh, before burying a
corpse, they often make a mark on the body with butter, oil or soot;
and when a child is subsequently born into the same family they
look for any kind of mark on the corresponding place on its body. If
any such be found they consider the child as a reincarnation of the
deceased person. Still-born children, and those who die before the
Chathi or sixth-day ceremony of purification, are not taken to the
burial-ground, but their bodies are placed in an earthen pot and
interred below the doorway or in the courtyard of the house. In
such cases no funeral feast is demanded from the family, and some
people believe that the custom tends in favour of the mother bearing
another child; others say, however, that its object is to prevent
the _tonhi_ or witch from getting hold of the body of the child and
rousing its spirit to life to do her bidding as Matia Deo. [456] In
Seoni a curious rule obtains to the effect that the bodies of those
who eat carrion or the flesh of animals dying a natural death should
be cremated. In the northern Districts a bier painted white is used
for a man and a red one for a woman.