Pondhi

Pondhi

Shooting the fire ball or firing the gun :

Author

@ConnectingKodavas

Purpose

During the earlier days, when there was no means of communications, indigenously made fire balls were used to inform the neighbors about the death in the family. During olden days there was no supply of oil. So the people living in the midst of forests used to extract oils from Kaadi seeds, Povvali seeds, Ponapuli seeds and caster seeds. After extracting oils from these seeds, the remaining cakes were made into balls and dried in sun light and used them as fire balls. Locally they were named as pondhi To inform the neighbors about the death of a person in the family These pondhi or fire balls were lit and after fixing them to a bow and arrow they would be shot towards the sky.