The Raghuvansis have now a set of exogamous groups of the usual
low-caste type, designated after titles, nicknames or natural
objects. They sometimes invest their sons with the sacred thread
at the time of marriage instead of performing the proper thread
ceremony. Some discard the cord after the wedding is over. At
a marriage the Raghuvansis of Chhindwara and Nagpur combine the
Hindustani custom of walking round the sacred pole with the Maratha one
of throwing coloured rice on the bridal couple. Sometimes they have
what is known as a _gankar_ wedding. At this, flour, sugar and _ghi_
[456] are the only kinds of food permissible, large cakes of flour
and sugar being boiled in pitchers full of _ghi_, and everybody being
given as much of this as he can eat. The guests generally over-eat
themselves, and as weddings are celebrated in the hot weather, one or
two may occasionally die of repletion. The neighbours of Raghuvansis
say that the host considers such an occurrence as evidence of the
complete success of his party, but this is probably a libel. Such a
wedding feast may cost two or three thousand rupees. After the wedding
the women of the bride's party attack those of the bridegroom's
with bamboo sticks, while these retaliate by throwing red powder
on them. The remarriage of widows is freely permitted, but a widow
must be taken from the house of her own parents or relatives, and
not from that of her first husband or his parents. In fact, if any
members of the dead husband's family meet the second husband on the
night of the wedding they will attack him and a serious affray may
follow. On reaching her new house the woman enters it by a back door,
after bathing and changing all her clothes. The old clothes are given
away to a barber or washerman, and the presentation of new clothes
by the second husband is the only essential ceremony. No wife will
look on a widow's face on the night of her second marriage, for fear
lest by doing so she should come to the same position. The majority of
the caste abstain from liquor, and they eat flesh in some localities,
but not in others. The men commonly wear beards divided by a shaven
patch in the centre of the chin; and the women have two body-cloths,
one worn like a skirt according to the northern custom. Mr. Crooke
states [457] that "in northern India a tradition exists among them
that the cultivation of sugar is fatal to the farmer, and that the
tiling of a house brings down divine displeasure upon the owner;
hence to this day no sugar is grown and not a tiled house is to be
seen in their estates." These superstitions do not appear to be known
at all in the Central Provinces.