primitive rite. At the Tij festival, which occurs in the rainy season, girls dressed in their best go to a tank near the city. After dropping offerings into the water in honour of Khwaja Khizr, they divide into two parties, each of which selects a leader, one of whom is known as the bride and the other a bridegroom. The latter is decorated with a paper crown decked with tinsel. The clothes of the pair are knotted together, and they are made to walk round a Tulasî plant or a Pîpal tree on the banks of the tank, in a mock form of the marriage ritual. Meanwhile each party chaffs the other, saying, “Your bride (or bridegroom) is one-eyed.” They return home with merriment of this kind, and when they come to the house the knot tied in the garments of the pair is unloosed.

We have, again, instances of the marriages of, or to animals. In parts of the Panjâb, if a man have lost two or three wives in succession, he gets a woman to catch a bird and adopt it as her daughter. He then marries the bird, and immediately pays over the bride-gift to the woman that adopted his bird-bride, which he divorces. After this he can get himself married to another woman, and she will probably live.1

So, there have been many instances of Râjas marrying animals with the customary rites. Some years ago, one of the Gâekwârs of Baroda spent a large sum in marrying some favourite pigeons, and a Râja of Nadiya spent a lâkh of rupees in marrying two monkeys.

Lastly, there are numerous survivals of what can hardly be anything else but tree marriage. Among the Bâwariyas, a vagrant tribe in Sirsa, the bride and bridegroom go outside the village to a Jand tree, which, as we have seen already, is regarded as sacred, move round it seven times, and then cut off a branch with an axe. In a Bhîl marriage, the pair walk round the Salyâra tree, which is placed in the marriage booth, twelve times. We have a similar custom among most of the menial tribes. The Kols make the

3

1 "North Indian Notes and Queries," i. 15. 2 "Settlement Report," 167.

3 66

Bombay Gazetteer," iii. 221.

marriage booth of nine bamboo poles, with a bamboo or a branch of the Siddh tree as the central post. As the bridegroom smears the parting of the bride's hair with red lead, he makes a daub of the same substance on the tree. Much the same custom prevails among all the inferior castes. The worship of trees at marriage prevails in Madras, where some Râjas worship at their marriages the fire and the Vahni tree, a twig of which is used as an arrow at the hunting feast at the Navarâtri or Dasahra.1

On the whole, it seems probable that this custom of pseudo-marriages may be based on various principles. The popular explanation of the custom is, as we have seen, that it is intended to avoid the curse of widowhood, the treehusband being always alive; the woman, even if her husband die, can never be a widow, nor can the parents be liable to the contempt which, according to popular Hindu belief, awaits those who keep a girl who has reached maturity unmarried. But when we find the same custom prevailing among races who habitually permit pre-nuptial infidelity, and among whom every marriageable widow is either subjected to the levirate or made over to a stranger, it seems obvious that this cannot be the original explanation of the practice.

Again, according to Mr. Frazer, who has collected numerous examples of the custom, "it is difficult to separate from totemism the custom observed by totem clans in Bengal of marrying the bride and bridegroom to trees before they are married to each other.” 2

But the idea that, as we have seen in one of the cases of tree marriages, the tree itself is supposed to die soon after the ceremony, seems to point to the fact that the marriage may be intended to divert to the tree some evil influence, which would otherwise attach to the wedded pair. We have an instance of a somewhat analogous practice from Bombay. Among the Konkan Kunbis, when a woman is in labour and cannot get a speedy delivery, some gold ornament from her hair is taken to a Rûî plant (the Dhâk— 2 "Totemism," 33 sqq.

Oppert," Original Inhabitants," 73.

Callotropis gigantea of Northern India), and after digging at its roots, one of the roots is taken out, and the ornament is buried in its stead. The root is then brought home and put in the hair of the woman in labour. It is supposed that by this means the woman gets speedy delivery. As soon as she is delivered of a child, the root is taken from her hair and brought back to the Rûî plant, and after digging at its root the ornament is taken out and the root placed in its former place." The idea seems to be that the evil influence hindering parturition is thus transferred to the plant. And this may be one explanation of the practice where, as we have seen, a man is married to a bird, or so on, when his former wives have died. The bird acts as the scape-animal, and carries the disease spirit away with it.

1

Lastly, we have seen instances in which the wedded pair are made to clasp the tree or are tied to it in some special way. There are numerous cases in which women, in order to procure offspring, clasp an idol, like that of Hanumân and one of the other guardian deities. The clasping of the tree at marriage may possibly be a sort of sympathetic magic to bring on the pair the fertility and power of reproduction, of which vegetable life is the well-known symbol. We have the same principle of the wedding of the grove to its well, and every Hindu who goes to the expense of making a tank, does not drink of its waters until he has married. the tank to a plantain or some other tree growing on its banks.

son.

TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.

In the story of the king and his son, told in the Baitâl Pachîsi, the king supplicates the sacred tree to give him a The request is granted, and the king then implores the tree to make his people happy; the result was that poor wretches, hitherto living in the woods, came forth and concerted measures to seize his kingdom. Rather than shed blood, the old king, his queen, and his son retired to a lofty

1 Campbell," Notes,” 250.