Kodava elders who heard about this word are no more !
Present generations do not know about this separated crema to renter of every family. Hundreds of years ago in every family there was a “Machini Kad” a few meters away from the graveyard of the family. It was a small piece of land about 20 to 50 cents. The Family members were forbidden to occupy or cultivate on this land. It was a graveyard of the family exclusively for the women born in that family, married to other families. A married woman had no rights in her maternal house( the family in which she was born).
It was obligatory for the mother to fetch the married daughter for her first delivery and confinement.
In those days there were no proper roads, no bridges to rivers,no transportation facility. People were not depending on the hospitals or trained nurses for the deliveries of pregnant women.
At the time of child birth, death of the mother and child was very common. As per the existing rule the dead body of a woman should be cremated at her husband’s family. Particularly in Monsoon, when the rivers are in full spat it was not possible to transport the body to her husbands house.
In such unavoidable circumstances, the dead body of the the woman was cremated in the Machini Kad of her maternal house. Not only in delivery, if an ins woman dies of smallpox or other contagious disease, the dead body was cremated in this piece of land earmarked for the purpose.
Very few, very old people Know about this.
