On the occasion of the first menstrual period, a girl is under pollution for seven days. If she is engaged to be married, her future father-in-law makes her a present of jewels and money on the seventh day, and thereby confirms the marriage contract.
The dead are cremated. A widow accompanies the corpse of her husband to the boundary of the village, carrying a ladle and pot, which she throws down at the boundary, and returns home. On the day after the funeral, the embers are extinguished, and an effigy of the deceased is made on the spot where he was cremated, and food offered to it. Toddy is distributed among those who have assembled at the house. On the tenth day, food is offered on ten fragments of pots. On the eleventh day, if the dead man was an important personage in the community, a ceremony, corresponding to the jola jola handi of the higher castes, is performed. A cloth is spread on the ground, on the spot where the corpse was cremated, and the ground round it swept by women, whose backs are turned towards the cloth, so that they cannot see it. Two men, with swords or big knives, sit by the side of the cloth and wait till an insect settles on the cloth. They then at once put the swords or knives on the cloth, and, folding it up, place it on a new winnowing-basket. It is taken home, placed on the floor, and connected by means of a long thread with the household god (mass of clay or vessel). It is then shaken near the god, so that the insect falls out.
Dandasi further occurs as a sub-division of the Kondras, the members of which have taken to the profession of village watchmen.
Dandi (a staff).--A house name of Korava.
Dandu (army).--A sub-division of Idiga, and an exogamous sept of Boya and Kapu. It has been suggested that the name is not Dandu but Dande, meaning pole, in reference to the apparatus used by the Idigas in climbing palm trees for the extraction of toddy. Dandu Agasa, indicating army washerman, occurs as a name for some Maratha Dhobis in Mysore, whose forefathers probably accompanied armies in times of war.
Dara (stream of water).--An exogamous sept of Mala.
Darabala.--Taken, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a sub-caste of Mala. It is a common house-name among many Telugu castes.