Prior to a marriage a bride-price, known as _sukh_ or _chari_,
and consisting of six rupees with some sugar, turmeric and sesamum
oil, must be paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of the
bride; and in the absence of this they will decline to perform the
ceremony. At the wedding the couple go round the sacred post, and then
the bridegroom mingles the flames of two burning lamps and pierces the
nose of the image of a bullock made in flour. This rite is performed
by several castes, and is said to be in commemoration of Krishna's
having done so on different occasions. It is probably meant to excuse
or legitimise the real operation, which should properly be considered
as sinful in view of the sacred character of the animal. And it may
be mentioned here that the people of the Vindhyan or Bundelkhand
Districts where the Dahaits live do not perforate the nostrils of
bullocks, and drive them simply by a rope tied round the mouth. In
consequence they have little control over them and are quite unable
to stop a cart going downhill, which simply proceeds at the will
of the animals until it reaches the level or bangs up against some
obstacle. In Bilaspur a widow is expected to remain single for five
years after her husband's death, and if she marries within that time
she is put out of caste. Divorce is permitted, but is not of frequent
occurrence. The caste will excuse a married woman caught in adultery
once, but on a second offence she must be expelled. If a woman leaves
her husband and goes to live with another man, the latter must repay to
her husband the amount expended on his marriage. But in such a case,
if the woman was already a widow or _kari aurat_, [492] no penalty
is incurred by a man who takes her from her second husband. A man of
any good cultivating caste who has a _liaison_ with a Dahait woman
will be admitted into the community. An outsider who desires to
become a member of the caste must clean his house, break his earthen
cooking-pots and buy new ones, and give a meal to the caste-fellows
at his house. He sits and takes food with them, and when the meal
is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest
and eats it, and drinks a drop of water from his leaf-cup. This act
is equivalent to eating the leavings of food, and after it he cannot
re-enter his own caste. On such occasions a rupee and a piece of cloth
must be given to the headman of the caste, and a piece of cloth to
each member of the _panchayat_ or committee. The headman is known
as Mirdhan, and a member of the committee as Diwan, the offices of
both being hereditary. The caste worship the Hindu and village gods
of the locality. They have a curious belief that the skull of a man
of the Kayasth (writer) caste cannot be burnt in fire, and that if
it is placed in a dwelling-house the inmates will quarrel. A child's
first teeth, if found, are thrown into a sacred river or on to the
roof of a house with a few grains of rice, in order that the second
teeth may grow white and pointed like the rice. The Jhalar or first
hair of a boy or girl is cut between two and ten years of age and is
wrapped in a piece of dough and thrown into a sacred river. Women are
tattooed on the back of the hands, and also sometimes on the shoulder
and the arms above the elbow, but not on the feet or face.