Customs
Marriage is normal at age 12 to 14 years and includes many rituals and ceremonies. The wedding is usually conducted in the groom's house. The groom has to give dowry to the bride's father. There is a grand vegetarian feast on the wedding day.
It is normal and acceptable for an adolescent to marry their first or second cousin or even the second spouse of a parent. Occurrence of in-breeding is up to 80%, resulting in a significantly high combined in utero, infant and child mortality rate of 38%. Polygamy is prevalent.
Birth: Before her delivery a woman is kept in a separate specially made hut near her house. When birth contractions begin, a mid wife who has mastery over sorcery, accompanies her. After delivery the women and the baby are declared unclean for six months. She leads a peaceful life without domestic work for three months, with the husband doing her usual tasks.
Death: When a person dies, couriers travel throughout the hamlets, chanting the name of the dead. The relatives and the neighbors sprinkle coriander mixed with water on the dead body and a coin is pasted on the forehead. The dead body is completely covered with a white cloth and placed in a bamboo cot. The people who come for the burial service resolve any problems they had with the dead person and thus he is expected to be completely freed for his eternal journey.
A whole day is spent dancing and singing, thanking god for letting the person live as long as they did. In that dance they show symbols that God gave and God took. Mudugar people do not cry when somebody dies. When the father dies, his first born son tonsure his head and when the mother dies the second son tonsure his head. If there are no males in the family girls do so instead.
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Famous quotes containing the word customs:
“We set up a certain aim, and put ourselves of our own will into the power of a certain current. Once having done that, we find ourselves committed to usages and customs which we had not before fully known, but from which we cannot depart without giving up the end which we have chosen. But we have no right, therefore, to claim that we are under the yoke of necessity. We might as well say that the man whom we see struggling vainly in the current of Niagara could not have helped jumping in.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)