Preparation of the body.

After death the body is prepared for cremation. (If the person has died at the river, the body is brought first to the top of the ghat^[*] .) The body is prepared by phuki members and members of the death guthi —an association of fellow thar members who will assist the family of the dead person with the subsequent stages of preparation, funeral procession, and cremation (see Toffin 1975b ). The corpse's eyes are closed, its clothes removed, and the body washed. A piece of clay from the river is placed as a ceremonial mark, a tirtha si(n)ha , on the corpse's forehead. The individual's birth horoscope, or jata :, which was prepared at the time of the Namkarana^[*] samskara , is placed on his or her forehead and fastened with a thread. The corpse's genitals are covered with a white cloth, which will be left in place during the subsequent cremation, when all other coverings are removed from the body. Four small clay dishes, containing oil and burning wicks, are placed at the body's right and left shoulders, head and feet. The body is now covered by two additional white cloths—one covers it from the waist to the neck, and the other is placed over the head and tied under the chin, leaving the face exposed. A burning wick from the dish at the corpse's head is given to a member of the Cala(n) thar (level XIII; see chap. 5), who uses it to light a twisted oil-soaked cloth supported in a bowl of oil to make a flaming torch that he will carry in the funeral procession, which is about to begin.

The clothes worn at the time of death (or under some conditions other clothes that had belonged to the person) are brought to the neighborhood crossroads chwasa . A member of the Jugi thar who has a traditional client relationship with the family and who will be used again during the mourning ceremonies of the fifth or seventh day after death, is notified, and then expected to go to the chwasa and take the clothes "for his own use."^[58]