The most distinctive feature of a Gond marriage is that the procession
usually starts from the bride's house and the wedding is held at that
of the bridegroom, in contradistinction to the Hindu practice. It
is supposed that this is a survival of the custom of marriage by
capture, when the bride was carried off from her own house to the
bridegroom's, and any ceremony which was requisite was necessarily
held at the house of the latter. But the Gonds say that since Dulha
Deo, the bridegroom god and one of the commonest village deities, was
carried off by a tiger on his way to his wedding, it was decided that
in future the bride must go to the bridegroom to be married in order
to obviate the recurrence of such a calamity. Any risk incidental to
the journey thus falls to the lady. Among the wilder Maria Gonds of
Bastar the ritual is very simple. The bride's party arrive at the
bridegroom's village and occupy some huts made ready for them. His
father sends them provisions, including a pig and fowls, and the day
passes in feasting. In the evening they go to the bridegroom's house,
and the night is spent in dancing by the couple and the young people
of the village. Next morning the bride's people go back again, and
after another meal her parents bring her to the bridegroom's house
and push her inside, asking the boy's father to take charge of her,
and telling her that she now belongs to her husband's family and must
not come back to them alone. The girl cries a little for form's sake
and acquiesces, and the business is over, no proper marriage rite being
apparently performed at all. Among the more civilised Marias the couple
are seated for the ceremony side by side under a green shed, and water
is poured on them through the shed in imitation of the fertilising
action of rain. Some elder of the village places his hands on them and
the wedding is over. But Hindu customs are gradually being adopted,
and the rubbing of powdered turmeric and water on the bodies of the
bride and bridegroom is generally essential to a proper wedding. The
following description is given of the Gonds of Kanker. On the day fixed
for the marriage the pair, accompanied by the Dosi or caste priest,
proceed to a river, in the bed of which two reeds five or six feet
high are placed just so far apart that a man can lie down between
them, and tied together with a thread at the top. The priest lies
down between the reeds, and the bride and bridegroom jump seven times
over his body. After the last jump they go a little way off, throw
aside their wet clothes, and then run naked to a place where their
dry clothes are kept; they put them on and go home without looking
back. Among the Gonds in Khairagarh the pair are placed in two pans
of a balance and covered with blankets. The caste priest lifts up the
bridegroom's pan and her female relatives the bride's, and walk round
with them seven times, touching the marriage-post at each time. After
this they are taken outside the village without being allowed to see
each other. They are placed standing at a little distance with a screen
between them, and liquor is spilt on the ground to make a line from
one to the other. After a time the bridegroom lifts up the screen,
rushes on the bride, gives her a blow on the back and puts the ring
on her finger, at the same time making a noise in imitation of the
cry of a goat. All the village then indulge in bacchanalian orgies,
not sparing their own relations.