8. Menarche ceremonies: Barha taegu and Barha cwa(n)gu.

The menarche rite differs significantly between those thar s who perform the Ihi ceremony and the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans, who traditionally did not. The contrast illustrates the influence of the mock-marriage on the Newar menarche samskara .

For the Brahmans, marriages were until a few years prior to this study necessarily completed ceremonially before the bride's first menstruation. Although the child bride continued to live in her natal home until after menarche, sometimes well after it, she was brought—usually temporarily, returning to her own home after the rite—to her husband's house in anticipation of the onset of her first menses so that her menarche rite would be held at her husband's home. If menses started unanticipatedly at her natal home. she was immediately brought to her husband's home, her head and face covered with a shawl. For the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans it was in accordance with standard Hindu traditions considered to be a serious violation of the dharma if (1) a girl was not married before menarche and (2) once so married, the married girl's first menstruation took place in her own home. In the Brahmanical (and traditional Hindu) case the menarche samskara , a ceremony lasting for twelve days, took place not only in the husband's home but at the time of actual menstruation.

For all the other thar s, those whose girls had Ihi marriages and who were thus "married" before menarche but who did not have a human husband's home to be brought to, the samskara takes place in the girl's natal household—or in a related phuki household. These ceremonies can be performed at the actual time of a girl's first menstruation—in which case they are called Barha cwa(n)gu , or prior to, often long before, menstruation, as a mock-menarche samskara , the procedure in these latter cases being called Barha taegu .^[32] There are various combinations of Barha taegu and Barha cwa(n)gu procedures. Upper-status thar s usually do a Barha cwa(n)gu , that is, a ceremony at the time of menarche, although this may be a relatively recent change from earlier Barha taegu , premenarche, practices.^[33] Traditionally middle-level thar s, that is, for the most part Jyapus, would link a group of premenarche girls in what was for those girls a Barha taegu to the Barha cwa(n)gu ceremonies for an actually menstruating girl. In recent times, among such middle-level thar s, the connection to actual menstruation has been often ignored and often only premenarche girls participate in a group ceremony. All these arrangements are considered effective menarche ceremonies, in that girls who have a premenarche Barha

taegu samskara will have no further ceremony at the time of their eventual first menstruation.

Traditionally the girls who were to have their Barha taegu had completed their Ihi marriage, and were perhaps seven or eight years of age, although now, it is said, there is some tendency at least for some of the girls to be older. While the Barha cwa(n)gu must be done at the time of actual menstruation, the optional range of timing of the Barha taegu calls for an astrological decision as to the auspicious timing. In contrast to other samskara s, the decision does not determine the sait for some focal action within the ceremony but, in this case, the proper lunar fortnight in which the twelve-day rite should take place.

The menstruating girl, or the group of premenstrual girls (who are usually sisters or girls of the same phuki ) are to be isolated for twelve days in a room in which the windows are covered so that no sunlight will enter.^[34] The Barha taegu girls are dealt with as if they were actually undergoing their first menstruation, that is, as if they were Barha cwa(n)gu girls. During this time the "menstruating girls" must not be seen by males (as the girls are within the house, this taboo primarily concerns male kin and, perhaps, their friends) who are beyond their Kaeta Puja samskara . The sight of the girls is said to be somehow dangerous to them. It was, reportedly, traditionally said that men would turn to ashes and die if they glimpsed the girls, and it is still said that it would, at the least, bring some sort of misfortune to a man who happened to see them. After twelve days of seclusion the girls are brought to the upper open porch, the ka:si , of the house to see and be seen by the sun. It is said that the girls are still full of power at this time, and that only the sun can resist their force, although it is said that, if the day is cloudy, even the sun resists seeing them. The isolation, then, is said to protect men and the sun from seeing the girls—not to protect the girls. During the girls' isolation from men household women enter the girls' room, and girl friends and young female relatives from other houses visit the girls. These visits, during which the girls play and laugh, are particularly important in the Barha cwa(n)gu , as the single girl would otherwise be relatively isolated. The visiting women and girls who are not phuki members are not polluted by these visits—in contrast to the household and phuki members, both male and female, who may share group impurity during this period (see below).

During the first four days the Barha girls have a restricted diet. On the fourth day they have the first of the two ceremonial purifications associated with the samskara . The girls go to the ka:si or cheli (chap. 7) of the house and bathe in a minor purification procedure. This marks the traditional end of actual menstruation. They then return to the room. Now, and for the remaining days, the girls are given rich foods to eat, including milk, meat, and beaten rice. On the fourth day in all thars served by Brahman purohitas the families of the girls send traditional substances—twelve betel nuts, twelve cloves, bhuisiha(n) pigment, rice powder, and mustard oil^[35] —to the family purohita . This is said to be a notification to the purohita that the girl has completed her first menstruation.^[36]

On the twelfth day the confinement ends with the Barha pikaegu , "the taking outside," which is a ceremonial climax of the samskara . On this day, in

preparation, the Nau and Nauni come before sunrise to purify the girls in a house courtyard or on the cheli . Household members are also purified before sunrise but separately from the girls.^[37]

After dawn the purohita does a Kalasa Puja on or near the open porch. The girls, their heads and faces covered with a cloth, are brought by household women to the edge of the puja area, where the purohita sprinkles sacred water and other purifying substances that had been used in the puja on them. The girls are then brought to the ka:si , where the cloths covering their heads are removed so that they can see—and be seen by—the sun (or, on a cloudy day, the sky). The girls' special power/contamination^[38] is now considered to be removed. The girls worship the sun with kiga : m an elementary puja (app. 4). They then do a second puja , this time a formal and elaborate one, to the sun with the help of the purohita , during which they worship the "twelve suns" of the twelve solar months. In the course of this puja the girls make offerings using a conch shell for the first time and will now be able to do so in subsequent worship on other occasions.

After the puja to the sun the household senior woman, the naki(n) , does a ceremonial act that anticipates a similar act occurring toward the end of the sequence of ceremonies in the "true" marriage sequence, and which on that occasion is said to signify that sexual intercourse has begun. This is the sa(n) pyakegu , the hair-parting ceremony. The naki(n) , as will the husband in the marriage ceremony, places a ceremonial cosmetic mixture (rice flour and oil) in the supine hands of each girl. The girls then rub the cosmetic mixture on their faces. The naki(n) then combs each gifts hair and braids it into three plaits, which are then woven together. Then for each girl in turn, the naki(n) places black pigment on the girl's eyelids and puts a spot of decorative bhuisinha(n) pigment on her forehead. Now the naki(n) holds up a mirror so that the girl may see herself, a gesture that has added force in that during the twelve days of seclusion the girls were forbidden to look at their reflections m a mirror.

The sa(n) pyakegu is followed by other pujas and offerings. In contrast to other auspicious samskaras , there is no worship of the mandalic^[*] areal pitha . The ceremony is followed by a small feast for close phuki , affinal, and feminal kin, but there is no large feast for the larger phuki group as there is in many other samskara s. The phuki group in some thars has been polluted during the twelve days. That pollution is lifted at the time of the Barha Pikaegu , without any need for major purification procedures.

This samskara , as the sa(n) pyakegu makes clear, alludes to the traditional implication of the menarche ceremony as a married girl's transition to active sexuality. The delayed true marriage and, also, the inclusion of the Barha taegu preadolescent girls alters this meaning. But the implication of incipient sexual passions, if not active sexuality, is still there.

The Barha Pikaegu , the ceremonial exit from seclusion, represents the reintegration after a period of "liminal" isolation (during which the major danger is to the household males) of the now actually or notionally sexually mature girl with religious and social forms and controls. In the traditional context this all takes place within a girl's husband's family, and represents a significant addi-

tion to her role as the family's daughter-in-law to now also being her husband's sexual partner. All these implications of the menarche ceremony have been transformed for the Newars by the introduction of the Ihi mock-marriage.