Infant-marriage is the custom of the caste, and the ceremony is
that prevalent among the agricultural castes of the locality. The
remarriage of widows is permitted, and they have the privilege of
selecting their own husbands, or at least of refusing to accept any
proposed suitor. A widow is always married from her father's house,
and never from that of her deceased husband. The first husband's
property is taken by his relatives, if there be any, and they also
assume the custody of his children as soon as they are old enough to
dispense with a mother's care. The dead are both buried and burnt,
and in the eastern Districts some water and a tooth-stick are daily
placed at a cross-road for the use of the departed spirit during
the customary period of mourning, which extends to ten days. On the
eleventh day the relatives go and bathe, and the chief mourner puts
on a new loin-cloth. Some rice is taken and seven persons pass it from
hand to hand. They then pound the rice, and making from it a figure to
represent a human being, they place some grain in its mouth and say
to it, 'Go and become incarnate in some human being,' and throw the
image into the water. After this the impurity caused by the death is
removed, and they go home and feast with their friends. In the evening
they make cakes of rice, and place them seven times on the shoulder
of each person who has carried the corpse to the cemetery or pyre, to
remove the impurity contracted from touching it. It is also said that
if this be not done the shoulder will feel the weight of the coffin
for a period of six months. The caste endeavour to ascertain whether
the spirit of the dead person returns to join in the funeral feast,
and in what shape it will be born again. For this purpose rice-flour
is spread on the floor of the cooking-room and covered with a brass
plate. The women retire and sit in an adjoining room while the chief
mourner with a few companions goes outside the village, and sprinkles
some more rice-flour on the ground. They call to the deceased person
by name, saying, 'Come, come,' and then wait patiently till some
worm or insect crawls on to the floor. Some dough is then applied
to this and it is carried home and let loose in the house. The flour
under the brass plate is examined, and it is said that they usually
see the footprints of a person or animal, indicating the corporeal
entity in which the deceased soul has found a resting-place. During
the period of mourning members of the bereaved family do not follow
their ordinary business, nor eat flesh, sweets or other delicate
food. They may not make offerings to their deities nor touch any
persons outside the family, nor wear head-cloths or shoes. In the
eastern Districts the principal deities of the Lohars are Dulha Deo
and Somlai or Devi, the former being represented by a knife set in the
ground inside the house, and the latter by the painting of a woman on
the wall. Both deities are kept in the cooking-room, and here the head
of the family offers to them rice soaked in milk, with sandal-paste,
flowers, vermilion and lamp-black. He burns some melted butter in an
earthen lamp and places incense upon it. If a man has been affected by
the evil eye an exorcist will place some salt on his hand and burn it,
muttering spells, and the evil influence is removed. They believe that
a spell can be cast on a man by giving him to eat the bones of an owl,
when he will become an idiot.