The Kolis both bury and burn the dead, but the former practice is more
common. They place the body in the grave with head to the south and
face to the north. On the third day after the funeral they perform the
ceremony called Kandhe kanchhna or 'rubbing the shoulder.' The four
bearers of the corpse come to the house of the deceased and stand as
if they were carrying the bier. His widow smears a little ghi (butter)
on each man's shoulder and rubs the place with a small cake which
she afterwards gives to him. The men go to a river or tank and throw
the cakes into it, afterwards bathing in the water. This ceremony is
clearly designed to sever the connection established by the contact
of the bier with their shoulders, which they imagine might otherwise
render them likely to require the use of a bier themselves. On the
eleventh day a Brahman is called in, who seats eleven friends of the
deceased in a row and applies sandal-paste to their foreheads. All
the women whose husbands are alive then have turmeric rubbed on their
foreheads, and a caste feast follows.