her, or if she is a shrew and wants some one to
bully, or if she has strict ideas of discipline and wishes personally
to conduct the bride's training for married life, she makes the girl
come more frequently and stay longer.

4. Widow marriage

The remarriage of widows is permitted, and a widow may marry any one
except persons of her own family group or her husband's elder brother,
who stands to her in the light of a father. She is permitted, but
not obliged, to marry her husband's younger brother, but if he has
performed the dead man's obsequies, she may not marry him, as this act
has placed him in the relation of a son to her deceased husband. More
usually the widow marries some one in another village, because the
remarriage is always held in some slight disrepute, and she prefers
to be at a distance from her first husband's family. Divorce is said
to be permitted only for persistent misconduct on the part of the wife.

5. Burial

The caste always bury the dead and observe mourning only for three
days. On returning from a burial they all get drunk, and then go to
the house of the deceased and chew the bitter leaves of the _nim_
tree (_Melia indica_). These they then spit out of their mouths to
indicate their complete severance from the dead man.

6. Occupation

The caste beat drums at village festivals, and castrate cattle,
and they also make brooms and mats of date-palm and keep leeches for
blood-letting. Some of them are village watchmen and their women act
as midwives. As soon as a baby is born, the midwife blows into its
mouth, ears and nose in order to clear them of any impediments. When
a man is initiated by a _guru_ or spiritual preceptor, the latter
blows into his ear, and the Mangs therefore say that on account of
this act of the midwife they are the _gurus_ of all Hindus. During
an eclipse the Mangs beg, because the demons Rahu and Ketu, who
are believed to swallow the sun and moon on such occasions, were
both Mangs, and devout Hindus give alms to their fellow-castemen in
order to appease them. Those of them who are thieves are said not to
steal from the persons of a woman, a bangle-seller, a Lingayat Mali
or another Mang. [184] In Maratha villages they sometimes take the
place of Chamars, and work in leather, and one writer says of them:
"The Mang is a village menial in the Maratha villages, making all
leather ropes, thongs and whips, which are used by the cultivators;
he frequent