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tempt felt for this class of priest may be, to some extent, based on the idea that by the use of these articles he takes upon his head the sins of the dead man.'

Again, writing of the customs prevailing among the Rajput tribes of Oudh which practise female infanticide, Gen. Sleeman writes: "The infant is destroyed in the room where it was born, and there buried. The room is then plastered over with cow-dung, and on the thirteenth day after, the village or family priest must cook and eat his food in this room. He is provided with wood, ghi, barley, rice, and sesamum. He boils the rice, barley, and sesamum in a brass vessel, throws the ghi over them when they are dressed, and eats the whole. This is considered as a Homa or burnt offering, and by eating it in that place, the priest is supposed to take the whole Hatya or sin upon himself, and to cleanse the family from it."

So, in Central India the Gonds in November assemble at the shrine of Gansyâm Deo to worship him. Sacrifices of fowls and spirits, or a pig, occasionally, according to the size of the village, are offered, and Gansyâm Deo is said to descend on the head of one of the worshippers, who is suddenly seized with a kind of fit, and after staggering about for a while, rushes off into the wildest jungles, where the popular theory is that, if not pursued and brought back, he would inevitably die of starvation, and become a raving lunatic. As it is, after being brought back by one or two men, he does not recover his senses for one or two days. The idea is that one man is thus singled out as a scapegoat for the sins of the rest of the village.

In the final stage we find the scape animal merging into a regular expiatory sacrifice. Other examples will be given in another connection of the curious customs, like that of the Irish and Manxland rites of hunting the wren, which are almost certainly based on the principle of a sacrifice. Here it may be noted that at one of their festivals, the Bhûmij

1 With this compare the Karnigor of Sindh-Hartland, "Legend of Perseus," ii. 295.

2 "Journey through Oudh," ii. 39.

used to drive two male buffaloes into a small enclosure, while the Râja and his suite used to witness the proceedings. They first discharged arrows at the animals, and the tormented and enraged beasts fell to and gored each other, while arrow after arrow was discharged. When the animals were past doing very much mischief, the people rushed in and hacked them to pieces with axes. This custom is now

discontinued.'

Similarly in the Hills, at the Nand Ashtamî, or feast in honour of Nanda, the foster father of Krishna, a buffalo is specially fed with sweetmeats, and, after being decked with a garland round the neck, is worshipped. The headman of the village then lays a sword across its neck and the beast is let loose, when all proceed to chase it, pelt it with stones, and hack it with knives until it dies. It is curious that this savage rite is carried out in connection with the worship of the Krishna Cultus, in which blood sacrifice finds no place."

In the same part of the country the same rite is performed after a death, on the analogy of the other instances, which have been already quoted. When a man dies, his relations assemble at the end of the year in which the death occurred, and the nearest male relative dances naked (another instance of the nudity charm, to which reference has been already made) with a drawn sword in his hand, to the music of a drum, in which he is assisted by others for a whole day and night. The following day a buffalo is brought and made intoxicated with Bhang or Indian hemp, and spirits, and beaten to death with sticks, stones and weapons.

So, the Hill Bhotiyas have a feast in honour of the village god, and towards evening they take a dog, make him drunk with spirits and hemp, and kill him with sticks and stones, in the belief that no disease or misfortune will visit the village during the year. At the periodical feast in honour of the mountain goddess of the Himâlaya, Nandâ Devî, it is said that a four-horned goat is invariably born and accompanies the pilgrims. When unloosed on the mountain, the

1 Dalton, "Descriptive Ethnology," 170. 2.66 Himâlayan Gazetteer," ii. 851 sq.

3 Ibid. ii. 871.

sacred goat suddenly disappears and as suddenly reappears without its head, and then furnishes food for the party. The head is supposed to be consumed by the goddess herself, who by accepting it with its load of sin, washes away the transgressions of her votaries.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WORSHIP OF THE SAINTED DEAD.

*Αιψσα δ ̓ ἴκοντο κατ' ἀσφοδελὸν λειμῶνα
Ενθα τε ναίουσι ψυχαί, ἔιδωλα καμόντων.

Odyssey, xxiv. 12, 14.

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP: ITS ORIGIN.

THE worship of ancestors is one of the main branches of the religion of the Indian races. "Its principles are not difficult to understand, for they plainly keep up the arrangements of the living world. The dead ancestor, now passed into a deity, simply goes on protecting his own family, and receiving suit and service from them as of old; the dead chief still watches over his own tribe, still holds his authority by helping friends and harming enemies; still rewards the right and sharply punishes the wrong.' It is in fact the earliest attempt of the savage to realize the problems of human existence, as the theology of the Vedas or Olympus is the explanation which the youth of the world offers of physical phenomena. The latter is primitive physics, the former primitive biology, and it marks a stage in the growth of anthropomorphism when the worship of unseen spirits in general passes to that of unseen spirits in particular.

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AMONG THE ARYANS AND DRAVIDIANS.

It is admitted on all sides that this form of worship was general among the Aryan nations; but it is a mistake to

1 Tylor, "Primitive Culture," ii. 113.

'Hearn, "Aryan Household," 18; Spencer, "Principles of Sociology," i. 270 sq.; Whitney, "Oriental and Linguistic Studies," 1st Ser. 59; Mommsen, "History of Rome," i. 73.

suppose, as is too often done, that the worship was peculiar to them. That such was not the case can be proved by numerous examples drawn from the practices of aboriginal tribes in India, who have lived hitherto in such complete isolation, that the worship can hardly be due to imitation of the customs of their more civilized neighbours.

Thus, on the tenth day after a death in the family, the Ghasiyas of Mirzapur, about the most degraded of the Drâvidian tribes, feed the brotherhood, and at the door of the cook-house spread flour or ashes a cubit square on the ground. They light a lamp there and cover both the square and the light with a basket. Then the son of the dead man goes a little distance in the direction in which the corpse had been carried out, and calls out his name loudly two or three times. He invites him to come and sit on the shrine which his descendants have prepared for him, and to consume the offerings which they are ready to present. It is said that if the deceased died in any ordinary way and not by the attack of a Bhût, he often calls from the burying ground and says, "I am coming!" After calling his father's spirit two or three times, the son returns to the house and examines the flour or ashes, and if the deceased did not die by the attack of a Bhût, the mark of his spirit is found on the flour or ashes in the shape of the footprint of a rat or a weasel. When this is observed, the son takes a white fowl and sacrifices it with a knife near the cook-house, calling to the spirit of his father-"Come and accept the offering which is ready for you!" Some of them strangle the fowl with their hands, and before killing it sprinkle a little grain before it, saying-" If you are really the spirit of my father, you will accept the grain!" Then he goes on to his father's spirit-" Accept the offering, sit in the corner and bless your offspring!" If the fowl eats the grain, there is great rejoicing, as it implies that the spirit has quietly taken up its residence in the house. If the fowl does not eat, it is supposed that some sorcerer or enemy has detained the spirit with the ultimate object of releasing it some time or other on its own family, with whom it is presumably dis

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