Storia do Mogor 258.3

258.3

On this ceremony having been completed, the bridegroom appears loaded with gold jewellery, generally borrowed, his body thoroughly rubbed with powdered sandal-wood, and covered with flower necklaces sprinkled [127] with little leaves of gold. In this array he is placed in a palanquin, carried on the shoulders of six or eight men. Before him go all the relations and friends on foot, escorting him, while a great number of trumpets, flutes, and drums are played. When the bridegroom with all this pomp reaches the door of the house where the wedding is to be celebrated, he gets out of the palanquin. His future mother-in-law comes to bathe his feet with cow's milk, wiping them with a piece of silk cloth. As he who is clean does not want even his feet washed he objects, but the other side maintain that he has not been purified. They must wash the whole of his body. By this means the bridegroom has to remove the whole of the jewellery with which he has come adorned. Binding round himself a morsel of cloth, he allows his body and head to be washed by the relations of the bride with a certain drug made from green-peas. This has been prepared on purpose. At the same time the parents deal similarly with the bride. Then both proceed to some river or pond to bathe, but at different places.