North Indian Popular Religion: 14-Warding off evil spirits
This article is an extract from THE POPULAR RELIGION AND FOLK-LORE OF NORTHERN INDIA WESTMINSTER Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor |
Bodily Functions
The functions of the body supply many omens. Thus, in [52]Somadeva we read: “My right eye throbbed frequently, as if with joy, and told me that it was none other than she.”142
“When our cheek burns, or ear tingles, we usually say some one is talking of us,” writes Sir Thomas Brown, “a conceit of great antiquity, and ranked among superstitious opinions by Pliny. He supposes it to have proceeded from the notion of a signifying Genius, or Universal Mercury, that conducted sounds to their distant subjects, and taught to hear by touch.” The number of beliefs of this class is infinite and recorded in numerous popular handbooks.
Lucky and Unlucky Days
So, there are days which are lucky and unlucky. A Persian couplet lays down that one should not go east on Saturday and Monday; west on Friday and Sunday; north on Tuesday and Wednesday; south on Thursday. Even Lord Burghley advised his son to be cautious as regards the first Monday in April, when Cain was born and Abel slain; the second Monday in August, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; the last Monday in December, which was the birthday of Judas. Akbar laid down that the clothes which came into his wardrobe on the first day of the month Farwardîn were unlucky.143 The way some people get over omens of this kind is to send some article ahead of the traveller on the unlucky day, which absorbs the ill omen, which would otherwise have fallen upon him.
The catalogue of superstitions of this class might be almost indefinitely extended. The principles on which most of them depend are clear enough. They rest on a sort of sympathetic magic. Things which are good-looking, people who are healthy or prosperous, give favourable omens, while those that are ugly, or of low caste, or associated with menial or unpleasant duties, and so on, are ominous. Europeans in India usually quite fail to realize the influence which such ideas exercise over the minds of the people. Most of us have been struck by the almost unaccountable [53]failure of natives to attend a summons from the Courts, to keep an appointment to meet a European officer for the inspection of a school or market. If inquiries are made it will often be found that some idea of this kind explains the matter.
Thus, Colonel Tod describes how he had a visit from Mânik Chand. “He looked very disconsolate and explained that he had seven times left his tent and as often turned back, the bird of omen having each time passed him on the adverse side; but that at length he had determined to disregard it, as having forfeited confidence he was indifferent to the future.”144
The same idea of good or evil omen attaches to many places and persons. “Nolai was built by Râja Nol. Its modern appellation of Barnagar has its origin in a strange, vulgar superstition of names of ill omen, which must not be pronounced before the morning meal. The city is called either Nolai or Barnagar, according to the hour at which the mention becomes necessary.”145 So with the town of Jammu in Kashmîr, which is unlucky from its association with Yama, the god of death; with Talwâra in the Hoshyârpur District, which is connected with the sword (talwâr); with Rohtak, which should be called Rustajgarh, and with numerous other places in Northern India. Thus, if people want to speak of Bulandshahr in the morning they call it by the old Hindi name of Unchgânw; Bhongânw in Mainpuri they call Pachkosa; Nânauta in Sahâranpur, Phûtashahr; Mandwa in Fatehpur, Rotiwâla, and so on.146
So, there is hardly a village in which it is not considered ominous to name before breakfast some one who, from his misery, rascality, or some other reason, is considered unlucky. In Mathura there is a tank built by Râja Patni Mall.
“Should a stranger visit it in the morning and inquire of any Hindu by whom it was constructed, he will have considerable [54]difficulty in eliciting a straightforward answer. The Râja, it is said, was of such a delicate constitution that he could never at any time take more than a few morsels of the simplest food; hence arises the belief that any one who mentions him the first thing in the morning will, like him, have to pass the day fasting.”147 When we wonder at people suffering bondage of this kind, we must not forget that similar beliefs prevail in our own country. “In Buckie there are certain family names which no fisherman will pronounce. The ban lies particularly heavy on Ross. Coull also bears it, but not to such a degree.
The folks of that village talk of spitting out the bad name.”148
A similar euphemistic form of expression is often used in regard to animals. If you are civil and do not abuse the house rats, they will not damage your goods.149
The Mirzapur Patâris when they have to mention a monkey in the morning, call him Hanumân, and the bear Jatari, or “he with the long hair,” or Dîmkhauiya, “he that eats white ants.” The Pankas call the camel Lambghîncha or “long-necked.” “I asked the Râja,” says Gen. Sleeman, “whether we were likely to fall in with any hares, making use of the term Khargosh, or ‘ass-eared.’” “Certainly not,” said the Râja, “if you begin by abusing them by such a name. Call them Lambkanna or ‘long-eared,’ and you will get plenty.”
It is, of course, easy to avoid the effect of evil omens by the use of a little tact and wit, as was the case with William the Conqueror, and there are many natives who are noted for their cleverness in this way. Of an Eastern Sultân it is told that, leaving his palace on a warlike expedition, his standard touched a cluster of lamps, called Surayya, because they resembled the Pleiades. He would have turned back, but one of his officers said, “My Lord! our standard has reached the Pleiades;” so he was relieved, advanced, and was victorious. [55]
Facilitating Departure of and Barring the Ghost
We now come to consider the various means adopted to facilitate the journey of the departing soul, and to prevent it from returning as a malignant ghost to bring trouble, disease, or death on the survivors.
First comes the custom of placing the dying man on the ground at the moment of dissolution. This is done partly, as we have seen, through some feeling of the sanctity of Mother earth and that anyone resting on her bosom is safe from demoniacal agency, and partly that the spirit may meet with no obstruction in its passage through the air. This last idea prevails very generally. Thus, in Great Britain, death is believed to be retarded and the dying person kept in a state of suffering by having any lock closed or any bolt shut in the dwelling.150
The tortures which the soul undergoes in its journey to the land of the dead are vividly pictured in some of the sacred writings.151 He is scorched by heat and pierced by wind and cold, attacked by beasts of prey, stumbling through thorns and filth, until he at last reaches the dread river Vaitaranî, which rolls its flood of abominations between him and the other shore. So, when a Hindu dies, a lamp made of flour is placed in his hands to light his ghost to the realm of Yama.
Devout people believe that the spirit takes three hundred and sixty days to accomplish the journey, so an offering of that number of lamps is made. In order, also, to help him on his way, they feed a Brâhman every day for a year; if the deceased was a woman, a Brâhmanî is fed. The lamps are lighted facing the south, and this is the only occasion on which this is done, because the south is the realm of death, and no one will sleep or have their house door opening towards that ill-omened quarter of the sky.
With the same intention of aiding the spirit on his way, the relations howl during the funeral rites, like the keeners [56]at an Irish wake, in order to scare the evil spirits who would obstruct the passage of the soul to its final rest.152
Another plan is to carry out the corpse by a special way, which is then barred up, so that it may not be able to find its way back. The same end is attained by carrying out the corpse feet foremost. Thus Marco Polo writes: “Sometimes their sorcerers shall tell them that it is not good luck to carry the corpse out by the door, so they have to break a hole in the wall, and to draw it out that way when it is taken to the burning.” It is needless to say that the same custom prevails in Great Britain.153 The Banjâras of Khândesh reverse the process. They move their huts after a death, and make a special entrance instead of the ordinary door, which is supposed to be polluted by the passage of the spirit of the dead.154 A somewhat similar custom prevails among the Maghs of Bengal.
When the friends return from the cremation ground, if it is the master of the house who has died, the ladder leading up to the house is thrown down, and they must effect an entrance by cutting a hole in the back wall and so creeping up.155 The theory appears to be that the evil spirits who were on the watch for the ghost may be lurking near the route by which the corpse was removed. We have the same idea in the European custom of saluting a corpse which is being carried past.
Grose distinctly states that the homage was really offered to the attendant evil spirits.156 So, the Birhors of Bengal, on the sixth day after birth, take the child out of the house by an opening made in the wall, so as to evade the evil spirit on the watch at the door.157
The most elaborate precautions are, however, devoted to barring out the ghost and preventing its return to its former home. The first of these consist of rules to prevent the [57]breach of the curiosity taboo.
All through folk-lore we have instances of the danger of looking back, as in the case of Lot’s wife. One of the maxims of Pythagoras was: “On setting out on a journey, do not return back; for if you do the fairies will catch you.”158
In one of the Kashmîr tales the youth is warned not to look back, otherwise he would be changed into a pillar of stone.159 In one of the Italian spells the officiant is told: “Spit behind you thrice and look not behind you.”160 In an Indian tale the god promises to help the Brâhman and to follow him. The Brâhman looks back and the deity becomes a stone.161 The danger of looking back is that the person’s soul may be detained among the ghosts of the dead.
This is the reason why Hindu mourners do not look back when they are returning from the cremation ground, and so we find that in Naxos it is a rule that none of the women who follow the bier must look back, for if she do she will die on the spot, or else one of her relations will die.162
Another means is to bar the return of the ghost in a physical way. Thus, when the Aheriyas of the North-Western Provinces burn the corpse, they fling pebbles in the direction of the pyre to prevent the spirit accompanying them.
In the Himâlayas, when a man has attended the funeral ceremonies of a relative, he takes a piece of the shroud worn by the deceased and hangs it on some tree in the cremation ground, as an offering to the spirits which frequent such places.
On his return, he places a thorny bush on the road wherever it is crossed by another path, and the nearest male relative of the deceased, on seeing this, puts a stone on it, and pressing it down with his feet, prays the spirit of the dead man not to trouble him.163 Among the Bengal Limbus, the Phedangma attends the funeral, and delivers a brief address to the departed spirit on the general [58]doom of mankind and the succession of life and death, concluding with the command to go where his fathers have gone, and not to come back to trouble the living with dreams.164
Practically the same custom still prevails in Ireland. When a corpse is carried to the grave, it is the rule for the bearers to stop half-way while the nearest relatives build up a small monument of loose stones, and no hand would dare to disturb this monument while the world lasts.165
In the case of the Dhângars and Basors, both menial tribes in the North-Western Provinces, we come across an usage which appears to be of a very primitive type and to be intended to secure the same object of barring the return of the ghost. After they have buried the corpse they return to the house of the dead man, kill a hog, and after separating the limbs, which are cooked for the funeral feast, they bury the trunk in the courtyard of the house, making an invocation to it as the representative of the dead man, and ordering him to rest there in peace and not worry his descendants. In the grave in which they bury this they pile stones and thorns to keep the ghost down.
Many other mourning customs appear to be based on the same principle. Thus, the old ritual directs that all who return from a funeral must touch the Lingam, fire, cowdung, a grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water—“all,” as Professor De Gubernatis says, “symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed.”166 The real motive is doubtless to get rid of the ghost, which may have accompanied the mourners from the cremation ground.
In Borneo rice is sprinkled over them with the same object, and the Basutos who have carried a corpse to the grave have their hands scratched with a knife and magic stuff is rubbed into the wound to remove the ghost which may be adhering to them.167 [59]
In Upper India, among the lower Hindu castes, when the mourners return after the ceremony, they bathe, water being a scarer of ghosts, and at the house door they touch a stone, cowdung, iron, fire, and water, which have been placed outside the house in readiness when the corpse was removed.
They then touch each their left ears with the little finger of the left hand, chew leaves of the bitter Nîm tree as a sign of mourning, and, after sitting some time in silence, disperse. Others, as the Ghasiyas, pass their feet through the smoke of burning oil, and others merely rub their feet with oil to drive away the ghost. The same idea of barring the return of the ghost by means of fire is found among the Nats of Kâthiâwâr, who burn hay on the face of the corpse before cremating it, and among the Thoris, who brand the great toe of the right foot of the deceased.168
This sitting in silence after the funeral is commonly explained merely as a mark of sympathy for the bereaved relatives, but an analogous custom in Ireland leads to the inference that the real reason may be to give the ghost time to depart, and not to interrupt in any way its progress to the spirit land.
On the west coast of Ireland, after the death no wail is allowed to be raised until three hours have elapsed, because the sound of the crying would hinder the soul from speaking to God when it stands before Him, and would waken up the great dogs that are watching for the souls of the dead to devour them.169
We have in these rites and in the ordinary ritual some further illustrations of the protective influence of various articles which scare evil spirits. Thus, after the cremation the officiating Brâhman touches fire and bathes in order to purify himself and bar the return of the ghost; and the relative who lights the funeral pyre keeps a piece of iron with him, and goes about with a brass drinking vessel in his hand as a preservative against evil spirits while the period of mourning lasts.
The system of protection is exactly the same as in the case of the young mother and her child [60]during the period of impurity consequent on parturition. As the Hedley Kow, the North British goblin, is peculiarly obnoxious at childbirth, so the Râkshasî of Indian folk-lore carries off the baby if the suitable precautions to repel her are neglected.170
Another method of barring the ghost is to bury the dead face downwards. This is common among sweepers of Upper India, whose ghosts, as seen in the probable connection of the Chûhra and the Churel, are always malignant. The same custom prevails among the Châran Banjâras of Khândesh. With this may be contrasted the Irish custom of loosening the nails of the coffin before interment, in order to facilitate the passage of the soul to heaven.171
A more elaborate ritual is that performed by the Mangars of Bengal. “One of the maternal relatives of the deceased, usually the maternal uncle, is chosen to act as priest for the occasion, and to conduct the ritual for the propitiation of the dead. First of all he puts in the mouth of the corpse some silver coins and some coral, which is much prized by the Himâlayan races.
Then he lights a wick soaked in clarified butter, touches the lips with fire, scatters some parched rice about the mouth, and, lastly, covers the face with a cloth. Two bits of wood about three feet long are set up on either side of the grave. In the one are cut nine steps or notches, forming a ladder for the spirit of the dead to ascend to heaven; on the other every one present at the funeral cuts a notch to show that he has been there. As the maternal uncle steps out of the grave, he bids a solemn farewell to the dead and calls upon him to ascend to heaven by the ladder prepared for him.
When the earth has been filled in, the stick notched by the funeral party is taken away to a distance and broken in two pieces, lest by its means the dead man should do the survivors a mischief. [61]The pole used to carry the corpse is also broken up, and the spades and ropes are left in the grave.”172
Among other devices to bar the return of the spirit may be noted the custom after a death in the family of preparing a resting-place for the ghost, until on the completion of the prescribed funeral rites it is admitted to the company of the sainted dead. Thus, among high-caste Hindus a jar of water is hung on a Pîpal tree for the refreshment of the spirit. The lower castes practise a more elaborate ritual.
When the obsequies are completed they plant by the bank of a tank a bunch of grass, which the chief mourners daily water until the funeral rites are over. In Bombay Mr. Campbell writes:173 “With a few exceptions generally among almost all classes of Hindus, when the dead is carried to the burning ground, on nearing the cemetery, a small stone is picked up and applied to the eyes, chest, and feet of the deceased.
This stone is called Jivkhâda or the spirit stone, is considered as the representative or type of the deceased, and offerings of milk and water are given to it for ten days.” Further he says: “On nearing the burning ground a small stone is picked up, and with it the feet, nose, and chest of the deceased are touched thrice.
This stone is called Ashma, and is considered as a type of the deceased, and to it funeral oblations are offered for ten days. The bier is then put down, and a ceremony called Visrânti Srâddha is performed by the chief mourner, who comes forward and offers two balls of rice, called Bhût or ‘spirit,’ and Khechar, or ‘roamer in the sky,’ to the deceased. A hole is dug and the balls are buried there, and the litter is raised again on shoulders by four persons and carried to the cemetery.”
The same idea of barring the return of the ghost accounts for the tombstone and cairn. British evil spirits have been secured in this way. Mr. Henderson tells of a vicious spirit which was entombed under a large stone for the space of ninety years and a day. Should any luckless person sit on [62]that stone, he would be unable to leave it for ever.174 In India, when a Ho or Munda dies, a very substantial coffin is constructed and placed on faggots of brushwood. The body, carefully washed and anointed with oil, is reverently laid in this coffin, and all the clothes, ornaments, and agricultural implements that the deceased was in the habit of using are placed with it, and also any money that he had with him when he died. Then the lid of the coffin is put on and the whole is burned.
The bones are collected, taken in procession to the houses of friends, and every place where the deceased was in the habit of visiting. They are finally buried under a large slab, and a megalithic monument is erected to the memory of the dead. A quantity of rice is thrown into the grave with other food.175
This custom of parading the corpse also prevails in Ireland.
“I believe it is the custom in most, if not all, small towns in the south for a body to be carried, on its way to the graveyard, round the town by the longest way to bid its last farewell to the place. If the body be that of a murdered man, it is, if possible, carried past the house of the murderer. In county Wicklow, if an old church lies on the way to the grave, the body is borne round it three times.”176
The Korkus of Hoshangâbâd have a remarkable method of laying the ghost. “Each clan has a place in which the funeral rite of every member of that clan must be performed; and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit to rest, and enable it to join its own family and ancestral ghosts. In this spot a separate stake (munda) is set up for every one whose rites are separately performed, and if a poor Korku performs them for several ancestors at once, he still puts up only one stake. It stands two or two and a half feet above the ground, planed smooth and squared at the top; on one side is carved at the top the [63]likeness of the sun and moon, a spider, and a wheat ear, and below it a figure representing the principal person in whose honour it is put up, on horseback, with weapons in his hands.
If more than one person’s death is being celebrated, the rest are carved below as subordinate figures. I could not learn that the spirits are supposed to specially haunt this grove of stakes, or that Korkus have any dread of going near it at night; but they are far bolder than Hindus in this respect. When the funeral rite is to be performed, the first thing is to cut a bamboo and take out the pith, which is to represent the bones of the deceased, unless he has been burnt, in which case the bones themselves will have been preserved. A chicken is then sacrificed at the grave, and all that night the mourners watch and dance, and sing and make merry.
“Next day they go out very early, and cut down some perfectly unblemished tree, either teak or Salâi, not hollow or decayed or marked with an axe, which they cut to make the Munda stake. It is brought home at once and fashioned by a skilful man. In the afternoon it is carried to the place where cattle rest outside the village at noontide, and is washed and covered with turmeric like a bridegroom, and five chickens are sacrificed to it. It is then brought home again, and the pith representing the bones is taken outside the village and hung to some tree for safety during the night.” (The idea, as we have elsewhere seen, is more probably to allow the ghost an opportunity of revisiting them.)
“All the friends and relations have by this time assembled, and this evening the chief funeral dinner is given. Next day, the whole party set out for the place where the stakes of their clan are set up, and after digging a hole and putting two copper coins in it, and the bones of the deceased or the pith which represents them, they put the stake in and fix it upright. Then they offer a goat or chickens to it, which are presently eaten close by, and in the evening the whole party returns home.”177
All this ritual, carried out by one of the most primitive [64]Indian tribes, admirably illustrates the principles which we have been discussing. The obvious intention of the custom is to provide a resting-place for the spirit of the dead man, so that it may no longer be a source of danger to the survivors.
Similar customs prevail among other aboriginal races of the Central Provinces. In some places they burn their dead and then erect platforms, at the corners of which they place tall, red stones. In other places a sort of low square mound is raised over the remains of the deceased, at the corners of which are erected wooden posts, round which thread is wound to complete the sacred circle, and a stone is set up in the centre. Here offerings are presented, as in the jungle worship of their deities, of rice and other grains, fowls or sheep. On one occasion after the establishment of the Bhonsla or Marhâta Government in Gondwâna a cow was offered to the manes of a Gond; but this having come to the notice of the authorities, the relations were publicly whipped, and all were interdicted from doing such an act again.
To persons of more than usual reputation for sanctity offerings continue to be presented for many years after their decease. In the District of Bhandâra rude collections of coarse earthenware in the form of horses may be seen, which have accumulated from year to year on the tombs of such men.178 The Pauariyas of Chota Nâgpur bury their dead, except the bodies of their priests, which are carried on a cot into the forests covered with leaves and branches and kept there, the reason assigned being that if laid in the village cemetery their ghosts become very troublesome.
The bodies of people who die of contagious disease are similarly disposed of, the fact of death in this way being supposed to be the direct act of one of the deities who govern plagues.179
In a country where immediate burial or cremation is necessary and habitual, we need not expect to meet many examples of the customs, of which Mr. H. Spencer gives [65]examples,180 of placing the body on a platform or the like in order to secure its personal comfort and conciliate the spirit. With the object of keeping a place ready for the spirit, some tribes are careful to preserve the body.
The Singpoo of the north-eastern frontier keep the bodies of their dead chiefs for several years, and the Kûkis dry the dead at a slow fire,181 practices which among more civilized races rise to embalming, as among the Chinese and Egyptians. The Thârus of the sub-Himâlayan Tarâî have a custom of placing the corpse on the village fetish mound during the night after death, and then the mourning goes on.
The practice is perhaps intended as much to prevent, by the sanctity of the spot on which it is placed, the spirit from harming the survivors, as from any special desire to conciliate it. Among all Hindus, of course, as far as exigencies of the rapid disposal of the remains allow, it is habitual to treat the dead with respect; corpses are carefully covered with red cloth, and removed reverently for burial or cremation.
There is also among some tribes the custom of disinterring corpses after temporary burial. Thus, the Bhotiyas of the Himâlayas burn their dead only in the month of Kârttik; those who die in the meantime are temporarily buried and disinterred when the season for cremation arrives. The Kathkâris, a jungle tribe in Bombay, dig up the corpse some time after burial and hold a wake over the ghastly relics.
They appear to do this only in the case of persons dying of cholera or small-pox, with some idea of appeasing the deity of disease. In parts of Oudh the custom is said still to prevail among the lower castes during epidemics, and it has recently attracted the attention of the sanitary officers.182
The Funeral Feast
The funeral feast is evidently a survival of the feast when the dead kinsman was consumed by his relatives, who [66]wished thus to partake of the properties of the dead. By another theory the feasting of the mourners is intended to resist the attempt of the ghost of the dead man to enter their bodies, food being offensive to spirits.
Mutilation a Sign of Mourning
Perhaps the only distinct survival of the ceremonial mutilation so common among savages as a sign of mourning, is the shaving which is compulsory on all the clansmen who shared in the death pollution. In the Odyssey, at the death of Antilochus, Peisistratus says, “This is now the only due we pay to miserable men, to cut the hair and let the tear fall from the cheek,” and at the burial rites of Patroklus “they heaped all the corpse with their hair which they cut off and threw thereon.”
The cutting of the hair is always a serious matter. “Amongst the Maoris many spells were uttered at hair-cutting; one, for example, was spoken to consecrate the obsidian knife with which the hair was cut; another was pronounced to avert the thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was believed to cause.”183 This ceremonial shaving is also perhaps the only survival in Northern India of puberty initiation ceremonies. In some cases the hair cut appears to be regarded as a sacrifice.
Thus between the ages of two and five the Bhîls shave the heads of their children. The child’s aunt takes the hair in her lap, and wrapping it in her clothes, receives a cow, buffalo, or other present from the child’s parent.184
Respect Paid to Hair
All over the world the hair is invested with particular sanctity as embodying the strength of the owner, as in the Samson-Delilah story. Vishnu, according to the old story, took two hairs, a white and a black one, and these became Balarâma and Krishna.
Many charms are worked through hair, and if a witch gets possession of it she can work evil to the owner. An Italian charm directs, “When you enter [67]any city, collect before the gate as many hairs as you will which may lie on the road, saying to yourself that you do this to remove your headache, and bind one of the hairs to your head.”185 The strength of Nisus lay in his golden hair, and when it was pulled out he was killed by Minos.
It is this power of hair which possibly accounts for its preservation as a relic of the dead in lockets and bracelets, or, as Mr. Hartland shows, the idea at the root of these practices is that of sacramental communion with the dead.186
We have already come across instances of growing hair as a curse. Mr. Frazer gives numerous examples of this custom among savage races, and in the Teutonic mythology the avenger of Baldur will not cut his hair until he has killed his enemy.
In the folk-tales hair is a powerful deus ex machinâ, human hair for choice, but any kind will answer the purpose. It is one of the most common incidents that the hero recognizes the heroine by a lock of her hair which floats down the stream.187
A curious instance of mutilation regarded as a charm may be quoted from Bengal. Should a woman give birth to several stillborn children, in succession, the popular belief is that the same child reappears on each occasion. So, to frustrate the designs of the evil spirit that has taken possession of the child, the nose or a portion of the ear is cut off and the body is cast on a dunghill.
Food for the Dead
Another means for conciliating the spirit of the dead man is to lay up food for its use.188 This is intended partly as provision for the ghost in its journey to the other world. [68]But in some cases it would seem that there is a different basis for the custom. As we have seen, it is dangerous to eat the food of fairy-land, and unless food is supplied to the wandering ghost, it may be obliged to eat the food of the lower world and hence be unable to return to the world of men.
According to the ancient Indian ritual it was recommended to put into the hands of the dead man the reins of the animal killed in the funeral sacrifice, or in default of an animal victim at least two cakes of rice or flour, so that he may throw them to the dogs of Yama, which would otherwise bar his passage,189 and the same idea constantly appears in the folk-tales where the hero takes some food with him which he flings to the fierce beasts which prevent him from gaining the water of life or whatever may have been the test imposed upon him.
The use of pulse in the funeral rites depends upon the same principle, and in the Greek belief the dead carried vegetables with them to hell, either to win the right of passage or as provisions for the road.
Articles left with the Corpse
Hence too comes the practice of burning with the corpse the articles which the dead man was in the habit of using. They rise with the fumes of the pyre and solace him in the world of spirits. The Kos told Colonel Dalton that the reason of this was that they were unwilling to derive any immediate benefit by the death of a member of the family. Hence they burn his wearing apparel and personal effects, but they do not destroy clothes and other things which have not been worn.
For this reason, old men of the tribe, in a spirit of careful economy, avoid wearing new clothes, so that they may not be wasted at the funeral.190
The custom of laying out food for the ghost still prevails in Ireland, where it is a very prevalent practice during some nights after death to leave food outside the house, a griddle cake or a dish of potatoes. If it is gone in the morning, the [69]spirits must have taken it, for no human being would touch the food left for the dead, as it might compel him to join their company. On November Eve food is laid out in the same way.191
There are numerous examples of similar practices in India. The Mhârs of Khândesh, when they remove a corpse, put in its mouth a Pân leaf with a gold bead from his wife’s necklace. At the grave the brother or son of the dead man wets the end of his turban and drops a little water on the lips of the corpse.192 So the Greeks used to put a coin in the dead man’s mouth to enable him to pay his fare to Charon. In the Panjâb it is a common practice to put in the mouth of the corpse the Pancharatana or five kinds of jewels, gold, silver, copper, coral, and pewter.
The leaves of the Tulasi or sweet basil and Ganges water are put into the mouth of a dying man, and the former into the ears and nostrils also. They are said to be offerings to Yama, the god of death, who on receiving them shows mercy to the soul of the deceased. The same customs generally prevail among the Hindus of Northern India.
Among the Buddhists of the Himâlaya, Moorcroft was present at the consecration of the food of the dead.193 The Lâma consecrated barley and water and poured them from a silver saucer into a brass vessel, occasionally striking two brass cymbals together, reciting or chanting prayers, to which from time to time an inferior Lâma uttered responses aloud, accompanied by the rest in an undertone.
This was intended for the use of the souls in hell, who would starve were it not provided. The music and singing, if we may apply the analogy of Indian practices, are intended to scare the vagrant ghosts, who would otherwise consume or defile the food.
The same is the case among the Drâvidian races. Thus, the Bhuiyârs of Mirzapur after the funeral feast throw a cupful of oil and some food into the water hole in which the [70]ashes of the dead man are deposited. They say that he will never be hungry or want oil to anoint himself after bathing. The Korwas, when burning a corpse, place with it the ornaments and clothes of the deceased, and an axe, which they do not break, as is the habit of many other savages. They say that the spirit of the dead man will want it to hack his way through the jungles of the lower world.
When the Bhuiyârs cremate a corpse they throw near the spot an axe, if the deceased was a man, and a Khurpi or weeding spud, if a woman. No one would dare to appropriate such things, as he would be forced to join the ghastly company of their owners. Where the corpse is burned they leave a platter made of leaves containing a little boiled rice, and they sprinkle on the ground all the ordinary kinds of grain and some turmeric and salt as food for the dead in the next world.
All these tribes and many low-caste Hindus in Northern India lay out platters of food under the eaves of the house during the period of mourning, and they ascertain by peculiar marks which they examine next day whether the spirit has partaken of the food or not. Among the jungle tribes there is a rule that the food for the dead is prepared, not by the house-mother, but by the senior daughter-in-law, and even if incapacitated by illness from performing this duty, she is bound at least to commence the work by cooking one or two cakes, the rest being prepared by one of the junior women of the family.
Among the more Hinduized Majhwârs and Patâris we reach the stage where the clothes, implements of the deceased, and some food are given to the Patâri priest, who, by vicariously consuming them, lays up a store for the use of the dead man in the other world. This is the principle on which food and other articles are given to the Mahâbrâhman or ordinary Hindu funeral priest at the close of the period of mourning.
Among the Bengal tribes, the Mâl Pahariyas pour the blood of goats and fowls on their ancestral memorial pillars that the souls may not hunger in the world of the dead. [71]Among the Bhûmij, at the funeral ceremony, an outsider, who is often a Laiya or priest, comes forward to personate the deceased, by whose name he is addressed, and asked what he wants to eat. Acting thus as the dead man’s proxy, he mentions various articles of food, which are placed before him. After making a regular meal, he goes away, and the spirit of the deceased is believed to go with him.
So among the Kolis of the Konkan, the dead man’s soul is brought back into one of the mourners. Among the Vârlis of Thâna, on the twelfth day after death, a dinner is given to the nearest relations, and during the night the spirit of the dead enters into one of the relations, who entertains the rest with the story of some event in the dead man’s life. Among the Santâls, one of the mourners drums by the ashes of the dead, and the spirit enters the body, when the mourner shaves, bathes, eats a cock, and drinks some liquor.194
Among the Bengal Chakmas, a bamboo post or other portion of a dead man’s house is burned with him, probably in order to provide him with shelter in the next world. Among the Kâmis, before they can partake of the funeral feast, a small portion of every dish must be placed in a leaf plate and taken out into the jungle for the spirit of the dead man, and carefully watched until a fly or other insect settles upon it. The watcher then covers up the plate with a slab of stone, eats his own food, and returns to tell the relatives that the spirit has received the offering prepared for him.
The Fly as a Life Index
The fly here represents the spirit, an idea very common in folk-lore, where an insect often appears as the Life Index. An English lady has been known in India to stop playing lawn-tennis because a butterfly settled in the court. In Cornwall wandering spirits take the form of moths, ants, and weasels.195 We have the same idea in Titus Andronicus, [72]when Marcus, having been rebuked for killing a fly, gives as his reason,—
“It was a black, ill-favoured fly,
Like to the empress Moor; therefore I kill’d him.”
A fly is the guardian spirit of St. Michael’s well in Banff.196
Recalling the Ghost
But while it is expedient by some or other of these devices to bar or lay the ghost, or prevent its return by providing for its journey to, and accommodation in the next world, some tribes have a custom of making arrangements to bring back the soul of the deceased to the family abode, where he is worshipped as a household spirit. Some of the Central Indian tribes catch the spirit re-embodied in a fowl or fish, some bring it home in a pot of water or flour.197 Among the Tipperas of Bengal, when a man dies in a strange village separated from his home by the river, they stretch a white string from bank to bank along which the spirit is believed to return.198 This illustrates an idea common to all folk-lore that the ghost cannot cross running water without material assistance.
Among the Hos on the evening of the cremation day certain preparations are made in anticipation of a visit from the ghost. Some boiled rice is laid apart for it, and ashes are sprinkled on the floor, in order that, should it come, its footsteps may be detected. On returning they carefully scrutinize the ashes and the rice, and if there is the faintest indication of these having been disturbed, it is attributed to the action of the spirit, and they sit down shivering with horror and crying bitterly, as if they were by no means pleased with the visit, though it be made at their earnest solicitation.199
Ashes
This use of ashes as a means of identifying the ghost, constitutes in itself quite an important chapter in folk-lore. [73]It reminds us of the Apocryphal legend of Bel and the Dragon. The idea probably originally arose from the respect paid to the ashes of the house fire by primitive races, among whom the hearth and the kitchen are the home of the household godlings.
There are numerous instances of this practice from Europe. In the Western Islands of Scotland on Candlemas Day the mistress takes a sheaf of oats, dresses it in woman’s apparel, and after putting it in a large basket beside which a wooden club is placed, cries three times, “Briid is come! Briid is welcome!” Next morning they look for the impression of Briid’s club in the ashes, which is an omen of a good harvest.200 Ash-riddling is a custom in the northern counties.
The ashes being riddled or sifted on the hearth, if any one of the family be to die within the year, the mark of a shoe will be impressed upon the ashes.201 In Wales they make a bonfire, and when it is extinguished each one throws a white stone into the ashes. In the morning they search out the stones, and if any one is found wanting, he that threw it will die within the year.202 In Manxland the ashes are carefully swept to the open hearth and nicely flattened down by the women before they go to bed.
In the morning they look for footmarks on the hearth, and if they find such footmarks directed to the door, it means in the course of the year a death in the family, and if the reverse, they expect an addition to it by marriage.203 According to one of the Italian charms, “And they were accustomed to divine sometimes with the ashes from the sacrifices. And to this day there is a trace of it, when that which is to be divined is written on the ashes with the finger or with the stick. Then the ashes are stirred by the fresh breeze, and one looks for the letters which they form by being moved.”204
Amongst some Hindus, on the tenth night after the death of a person, he who fired the funeral pyre is required to sift [74]some ashes, near which a lamp is placed, and the whole covered with a basket. Next morning the ashes are examined, and the ghost is supposed to have migrated into the animal whose mark appears on the ashes.205 So, at the annual feast of the dead, the jungle tribes of Mirzapur spread ashes on the floor, and a mark generally like that of a chicken’s foot shows that the family ghosts have visited the house. “On New Year’s Eve,” says Aubrey, “sift or smooth the ashes and leave it so when you go to bed; next morning look, and if you find there the likeness of a coffin, one will die; if a ring, one will be married.”206 In North Scotland, on the night after the funeral, bread and water are placed in the apartment where the body lay.
The dead man was believed to return that night and partake of the food; unless this were done the spirits could not rest in the unseen world. This probably accounts for the so-called “food vases” and “drinking cups” found in the long barrows.207 All Hindus believe that the ghosts of the dead return on the night of the Diwâlî or feast of lamps.
Replacing Household Vessels
After a death all the household earthen pots are broken and replaced. It has been suggested that this is due either to the belief that the ghost of the dead man is in some of them, or that the custom may have some connection with the idea of providing the ghost with utensils in the next world.208 In popular belief, however, the custom is explained by the death pollution attaching to all the family cooking vessels, which, if of metal, are purified with fire.
The vessel is the home of the spirit: “At most Hindu funerals a water jar is carried round the pyre, and then dashed to the ground, apparently to show that the spirit has left its [75]earthly home. So, the Surat Chondras set up as spirit homes large whitewashed earthen jars laid on their sides. So, to please any spirit likely to injure a crop, an earthen jar is set on a pole as the spirit’s house, and so at a wedding or other ceremonies, jars, sometimes empty, sometimes filled with water, are piled as homes for planets and other marriage gods and goddesses, that they may feel pleased and their influence be friendly.”209
We have already met with the Kalasa or sacred jar. The same idea of the pollution of earthen vessels prevailed among the Hebrews, when an earthen vessel remaining in a tent in which a person died was considered impure for seven days.210
Funeral Rites in Effigy
When a person dies at a distance from home, and it is impossible to perform the funeral rites over the body, it is cremated in effigy. The special term for this is Kusa-putra, or “son of the Kusa grass.” Colonel Tod gives a case of this when Râja Ummeda of Bûndi abdicated: “An image of the prince was made, and a pyre was erected on which it was consumed. The hair and whiskers of Ajît, his successor, were taken off and offered to the Manes; lamentations and wailing were heard in the Queen’s apartments, and the twelve days of mourning were held as if Ummeda had really deceased; on the expiration of which the installation of his successor took place.”211
Ghosts Lengthening Themselves
Ghosts, as we have already seen in the case of the Naugaza, have the power of changing their length. In the well-known tale in the Arabian Nights the demon is shut up in a jar under the seal of the Lord Solomon, as in one of the German tales the Devil is shut up in a crevice in a [76]pine tree, and the ghost of Major Weir of Edinburgh resided in his walking-stick.212Some of the Indian ghosts, like the Ifrît of the Arabian Nights, can grow to the length of ten yojanas or eighty miles.
In one of the Bengal tales a ghost is identified because she can stretch out her hands several yards for a vessel.213 Some ghosts possess the very dangerous power of entering human corpses, like the Vetâla, and swelling to an enormous size. The Kharwârs of Mirzapur have a wild legend, which tells how long ago an unmarried girl of the tribe died, and was being cremated. While the relations were collecting wood for the pyre, a ghost entered the corpse, but the friends managed to expel him.
Since then great care is taken not to leave the bodies of women unwatched. So, in the Panjâb, when a great person is cremated the bones and ashes are carefully watched till the fourth day, to prevent a magician interfering with them. If he has a chance, he can restore the deceased to life, and ever after retain him under his influence.
This is the origin of the custom in Great Britain of waking the dead, a practice which “most probably originated from a silly superstition as to the danger of a corpse being carried off by some of the agents of the invisible world, or exposed to the ominous liberties of brute animals.”214 But in India it is considered the best course, if the corpse cannot be immediately disposed of, to measure it carefully, and then no malignant Bhût can occupy it. We have already met with instances of a similar idea of the mystic effect supposed to follow on measuring or weighing grain.
Kindly Ghosts
Most of the ghosts whom we have been as yet considering are malignant. There are, however, others which are friendly. Such are the German Elves, the Robin Goodfellow, [77]Puck, Brownie and the Cauld Lad of Hilton of England, the Glashan of the Isle of Man, the Phouka or Leprehaun of Ireland. Such, in one of his many forms, is the Brahmadaitya, or ghost of a Brâhman who has died unmarried.
In Bengal he is believed to be more neat and less mischievous than other ghosts; the Bhûts carry him in a palanquin, he wears wooden sandals, lives in a Banyan or Bel tree, and Sankhachûrnî is his mistress.
He appears to be about the only respectable bachelor ghost. In one of the folk-tales a ghostly reaper of this class assists his human friend, and can cut as much of the crop in a minute as an ordinary person can in a day.215 So, the Manx Brownie is called the Fenodyree, and he is described as a hairy, clumsy fellow who would thresh a whole barnful of corn in a single night for the people to whom he felt well disposed.216 This Brahmadaitya is the leader of the other ghosts in virtue of his respectable origin; he lives in a tree, and, unlike other varieties of Bhûts, does not eat all kinds of food, but only such as are considered ceremonially pure.
He never, like common Bhûts, frightens men, but is harmless and quiet, never plaguing benighted travellers, nor entering into the bodies of living men or women, but if his dignity be insulted, or any one trespass on his domains, he wrings their necks.
Tree Ghosts
Hence in regard to trees great caution is required. A Hindu will never climb one of the varieties of fig, the Ficus Cordifolia, except through dire necessity, and if a Brâhman is forced to ascend the Bel tree or Aegle Marmelos for the purpose of obtaining the sacred trefoil so largely used in Saiva worship, he only does so after offering prayers to the gods in general, and to the Brahmadaitya in particular who may have taken up his abode in this special tree.
These tree ghosts are, it is needless to say, very numerous. [78]Hence most local shrines are constructed under trees, and in one particular tree, the Bîra, the jungle tribes of Mirzapur locate Bâgheswar, the tiger godling, one of their most dreaded deities. In the Konkan, according to Mr. Campbell,217 the medium or Bhagat who becomes possessed is called Jhâd, or “tree,” apparently because he is a favourite dwelling-place for spirits. In the Dakkhin it is believed that the spirit of the pregnant woman or Churel lives in a tree, and the Abors and Padams of East Bengal believe that spirits in trees kidnap children.218 Many of these tree spirits appear in the folk-tales.
Thus, Devadatta worships a tree which one day suddenly clave in two and a nymph appeared who introduced him inside the tree, where was a heavenly palace of jewels, in which, reclining on a couch, appeared Vidyatprabhâ, the maiden daughter of the king of the Yakshas; in another story the mendicant hears inside a tree the Yaksha joking with his wife.219 So Daphne is turned into a tree to avoid the pursuit of her lover.
The Brahmaparusha
But there is another variety of Brâhman ghost who is much dreaded. This is the Brahmaparusha or Brahma Râkshasa. In one of the folk-tales he appears black as soot, with hair yellow as the lightning, looking like a thunder-cloud. He had made himself a wreath of entrails; he wore a sacrificial cord of hair; he was gnawing the flesh of a man’s head and drinking blood out of a skull. In another story these Brahma Râkshasas have formidable tusks, flaming hair, and insatiable hunger.
They wander about the forests catching animals and eating them.220 Mr. Campbell tells a Marhâta legend of a master who became a Brahmaparusha in order to teach grammar to a pupil. He haunted a house at Benares, and the pupil went to take lessons from him. He promised to teach him the whole [79]science in a year on condition that he never left the house. One day the boy went out and learned that the house was haunted, and that he was being taught by a ghost.
The boy returned and was ordered by the preceptor to take his bones to Gaya, and perform the necessary ceremonies for the emancipation of his soul. This he did, and the uneasy spirit of the learned man was laid.221 We have already encountered similar angry Brâhman ghosts, such as Harshu Pânrê and Mahenî.
The Jâk and Jâknî
The really friendly agricultural sprites are the pair known in some places as the Jâk and Jâknî, and in others as Chordeva and Chordevî, the “thief godlings.” With the Jâk we come on another of these curious survivals from the early mythology in a sadly degraded form. As Varuna, the god of the firmament, has been reduced in these later days to Barun, a petty weather godling, so the Jâk is the modern representative of the Yaksha, who in better times was the attendant of Kuvera, the god of wealth, in which duty he was assisted by the Guhyaka.
The character of the Yaksha is not very certain. He was called Punya-janas, “the good people,” but he sometimes appears as an imp of evil. In the folk-tales, it must be admitted, the Yakshas have an equivocal reputation. In one story the female, or Yakshinî, bewilders travellers at night, makes horns grow on their foreheads, and finally devours them; in another the Yakshas have, like the Churel, feet turned the wrong way and squinting eyes; in a third they separate the hero from the heroine because he failed to make due offerings to them on his wedding day.
On the other hand, in a fourth tale the Yakshinî is described as possessed of heavenly beauty; she appears again when a sacrifice is made in a cemetery to get her into the hero’s power, as a heavenly maiden beautifully adorned, seated in a chariot of gold surrounded by lovely girls; and lastly, a Brâhman meets some [80]Buddhist ascetics, performs the Uposhana vow, and would have become a god, had it not been that a wicked man compelled him by force to take food in the evening, and so he was re-born as a Guhyaka.222
In the modern folk-lore of Kashmîr, the Yaksha has turned into the Yech or Yach, a humorous, though powerful, sprite in the shape of a civet cat of a dark colour, with a white cap on his head. This small high cap is one of the marks of the Irish fairies, and the Incubones of Italy wear caps, “the symbols of their hidden, secret natures.” The feet of the Yech are so small as to be almost invisible, and it squeaks in a feline way. It can assume any shape, and if its white cap can be secured, it becomes the servant of the possessor, and the white cap makes him invisible.223
In the Vishnu Purâna we read that Vishnu created the Yakshas as beings emaciate with hunger, of hideous aspect, and with big beards, and that from their habit of crying for food they were so named.224 By the Buddhists they were regarded as benignant spirits. One of them acts as sort of chorus in the Meghadûta or “Cloud Messenger” of Kâlidâsa. Yet we read of the Yaka Alawaka, who, according to the Buddhist legend, used to live in a Banyan tree, and slay any one who approached it; while in Ceylon they are represented as demons whom Buddha destroyed.225 In later Hinduism they are generally of fair repute, and one of them was appointed by Indra to be the attendant of the Jaina Saint Mahâvîra. It is curious that in Gujarât the term Yaksha is applied to Musalmâns, and in Cutch to a much older race of northern conquerors.226
At any rate the modern Jâk and Jâknî, Chordeva and Chordevî, are eminently respectable and kindly sprites. They are, in fact, an obvious survival of the pair of corn [81]spirits which inhabit the standing crop.227 The Jâk is compelled to live apart from the Jâknî in neighbouring villages, but he is an uxorious husband, and robs his own village to supply the wants of his consort. So, if you see a comparatively barren village, which is next to one more productive, you may be sure that the Jâk lives in the former and the Jâknî in the latter. The same is the character of the Chor or Chordeva and the Chornî or Chordevî of the jungle tribes of Mirzapur.
Ghosts which Protect Cattle
In the Hills there are various benevolent ghosts or godlings who protect cattle. Sâin, the spirit of an old ascetic, helps the Bhotiyas to recover lost cattle, and Siddhua and Buddhua, the ghosts of two harmless goatherds, are invoked when a goat falls ill.228 In the same class is Nagardeo of Garhwâl, who is represented in nearly every village by a three-pronged pike or Trisûla on a platform.
When cows and buffaloes are first milked, the milk is offered to him. It is perhaps possible that from some blameless godling of the cow-pen, such as Nagardeo, the cultus of Pasupatinâtha, “the lord of animals,” an epithet of Siva or Rudra, who has a stately shrine at Hardwâr, where his lingam is wreathed with cobras, was derived. Another Hill godling of the same class is Chaumu or Baudhân, who has a shrine in every village, which the people at the risk of offending him are supposed to keep clean and holy.
Lamps are lighted, sweetmeats and the fruits of the earth are offered to him. When a calf dies the milk of the mother is considered unholy till the twelfth day, when some is offered to the deity. He also recovers lost animals, if duly propitiated, but if neglected, he brings disease on the herd.229
Another cattle godling in the Hills is Kaluva or Kalbisht, who lived on earth some two hundred years ago. His enemies persuaded his brother-in-law to kill him. After his [82]death he became a benevolent spirit, and the only people he injured were the enemies who compassed his death.
His name is now a charm against wild beasts, and people who are oppressed resort to his shrine for justice. Except in name he seems to have nothing to say to Kâlu Kahâr, who was born of a Kahâr girl, who by magical charms compelled King Solomon to marry her. His fetish is a stick covered with peacock’s feathers to which offerings of food are made. He has more than a quarter of a million worshippers, according to the last census, in the Meerut Division.
Bugaboos
We close this long list of ghostly personages with those who are merely bugaboos to frighten children. Such are Hawwa, probably a corruption through the Prâkrit of the Sanskrit Bhûta, and Humma or Humu, who is said to be the ghost of the Emperor Humayûn, who died by an untimely death. Akin perhaps to him are the Humanas of Kumaun, who take the form of men, but cannot act as ordinary persons.230
These sprites are to the Bengâli matron what Old Scratch and Red Nose and Bloody Bones are to English mothers,231 and when a Bengâli baby is particularly naughty its mother threatens to send for Warren Hastings. Akin to these is Ghoghar, who represents Ghuggu or the hooting of the owl.232 Nekî Bîbî, “the good lady;” Mâno or the cat; Bhâkur; Bhokaswa; and Dokarkaswa, “the old man with the bag,” who carries off naughty children, who is the Mr. Miacca of the English nursery.233
1 For some of the literature of the Evil Eye see Tylor, “Early History,” 134; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 187 sq.; Westropp, “Primitive Symbolism,” 58 sqq.; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 8.
2 “Natural History,” vii. 2.
3 Ibbetson, “Panjâb Ethnography,” 117.
4 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 24.
5 Campbell, “Notes,” 207.
6 On this see valuable notes by W. Cockburn in “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 14.
7 For many lists of such names see Temple, “Proper Names of Panjâbis,” 22 sqq.; “Indian Antiquary,” viii. 321 sq.; x. 321 sq.; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i.26, 51; iii. 9.
8 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 35.
9 “Folk-lore,” iii. 85.
10 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 20.
11 “Folk-lore,” i. 273; Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 242; Lubbock, “Origin of Civilization,” 243; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 119 sq.
12 “Notes,” 400.
13 Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” vii. 6.
14 “Folk-lore,” ii. 179.
15 “Bombay Gazetteer,” v. 45 sq.
16 “Folk-lore,” iv. 147.
17 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 42.
18 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 53.
19 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 7.
20 Brand, “Observations,” 753.
21 Campbell, “Notes,” 184.
22 “Notes,” 34.
23 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 5, 60, 62.
24 Reg. vs. Lalla, “Nizâmat Adâlat Reports,” 22nd September, 1853.
25 Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 281.
26 “Folk-lore,” i. 154.
27 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 386, 575; ii. 64.
28 Brand, “Observations,” 339.
29 “Primitive Manners,” 293.
30 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 181.
31 “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 264.
32 “Bombay Gazetteer,” v. 123; and for another instance, see Jarrett, “Aîn-i-Akbari,” ii. 197.
33 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales,” 108 sqq.; Wilson, “Indian Caste,” ii. 174.
34 Campbell, “Notes,” 69.
35 Brand, “Observations,” 344, 733.
36 v. 21.
37 For further examples see Campbell, “Notes,” 126 sqq.
38 Temple, “Wideawake Stories,” 83; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i.478.
39 Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” vii. 50.
40 Campbell, “Notes,” 119.
41 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 53.
42 Brand, “Observations,” 733.
43 “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 434.
44 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 146; Leland. “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 267.
45 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 213.
46 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 67.
47 Campbell, “Notes,” 49 sq.
48 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 115, 270, 272.
49 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 51.
50 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 209.
51 Brand, “Observations,” 166.
52 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 260, 279; Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” ii. 258 sqq.
53 “Folk-lore,” iv. 358, 361.
54 Brand, loc. cit., 724.
55 Campbell, “Notes,” 131; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 439.
56 Brand, loc. cit., 668.
57 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 198.
58 Schrader, “Prehistoric Antiquities,” 163 sqq.
59 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 45; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 205.
60 “Folk-lore,” ii. 292; Rhys, “Lectures,” 446, 553; Campbell, “Popular Tales,” Introduction, lxx.; ii. 98; Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” i. 37.
61 Brand, “Observations,” 355.
62 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 125.
63 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 117.
64 Campbell, “Notes,” 95.
65 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 261, 321.
66 Brand, “Observations,” 58.
67 Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” ii. 289.
68 Dalton, loc. cit., 261.
69 “Settlement Report,” 274.
70 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 29.
71 Campbell, “Notes,” 92.
72 Growse, “Râmâyana,” 99.
73 Frazer, “Totemism,” 26 sq.
74 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 157, 161, 191, 219, 251.
75 Bholanâth Chandra, “Travels of a Hindu,” i. 326; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 27, 99; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 125.
76 Campbell, “Notes,” p. 134.
77 Yule, “Marco Polo,” ii. 69,99; Herodotus, v. 6; and for the Dacians, Pliny, “Natural History,” vii. 10; xxii. 2.
78Loc. cit., ii. 218.
79 Hislop, “Papers,” ii., note; Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 292.
80 Brand, “Observations,” 399. For the Indian versions of Cinderella and her shoe, see “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 102, 121.
81 “Legend of Perseus,” i. 171.
82 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 409.
83 Campbell, “Notes,” 105.
84 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 86.
85 Brand, “Observations,” 335.
86 Campbell, “Notes,” 91, quoting Chambers, “Book of Days,” 720.
87 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 93.
88 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iv. 132; Campbell, “Notes,” 284.
89 Brand, “Observations,” 121.
90 Brand, “Observations,” 598.
91 Rhys, “Lectures.” 348; Miss Cox, “Cinderella,” 489; Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 429; Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” i. 12.
92 Knowles, “Folk-lore of Kashmîr,” 333.
93 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 283.
94 Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 254, note, 301.
95 “History of Indian Architecture,” 57 sqq.; Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” ii. 87; xvi. 8 sqq.
96 Monier-Williams, “Brâhmanism and Hinduism,” 203.
97 Aubrey, “Remaines,” 57.
98 “Notes,” 177.
99 Westropp, “Primitive Symbolism,” 58 sqq., 61 sqq.
100 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xviii. 473, 426.
101 “Settlement Report,” 59 sqq.
102 Tod, “Annals,” i. 383, note, 411, note.
103 Campbell, “Notes.” 251.
104 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 44.
105 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 186.
106 “Folk-lore,” ii. 75; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 110; Brand, “Observations,” 754.
107 Lady Wilde, loc. cit., 79.
108 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 337; ii. 233, 358.
109 ii. 279.
110 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 61.
111 Tod, “Annals,” i. 457; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 169.
112 Brand, “Observations,” 359.
113 Trumbull, “Blood Covenant,” 65; Lubbock, “Origin of Civilization,” 25; Tylor, “Early History,” 128 sq.; Jones, “Finger-ring Lore,” 91 sqq.
114 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 23.
115 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 61; ii. 80; Lane, “Arabian Nights,” i. 9.
116 Miss Frere, “Old Deccan Days,” 230, 236.
117 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 467.
118 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 49; Tawney, loc. cit., i. 300.
119 Henderson, “Folk-lore of Northern Counties,” 155; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 145.
120 “Notes and Queries,” i. ser. iv. 500.
121 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 259.
122 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 195, 197, 199.
123 “Settlement Report,” 278, 286.
124 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 15.
125 Tod, “Annals,” i. 415; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 20.
126 Knowles, “Folk-tales of Kashmîr,” 71; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 340.
127 Risley, “Tribes and Castes.” i. 173, 315.
128 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 168.
129 Risley, loc. cit., i. 425.
130 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 576, quoting Lenormant, “Chaldean Magic and Sorcery,” 141; Ralston, “Songs of the Russian People,” 288.
131 Campbell, “Notes,” 60.
132 Harland, “Science of Fairy Tales,” 79 sqq.
133 Growse, 146.
134 “Primitive Culture,” i. 120.
135 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” ii. 151.
136 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 48; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 146 sqq.
137 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 12.
138 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 66. It has been suggested that the idea arose from the Sanskrit word sasin, meaning “hare-marked” or “the moon”; but this seems rather putting the cart before the horse. Conway, “Demonology,” i. 125; Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 8; Aubrey, “Remaines,” 20, 109.
139 “Bombay Gazetteer,” vi. 126; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 128; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 179.
140 Tod, “Annals,” ii. 577 sq.
141 Malcolm, “Central India,” i. 253, note.
142 Tawney, loc cit., ii. 128.
143 Blochmann, “Aîn-i-Akbari,” i. 91.
144 “Annals,” i. 694.
145 Malcolm, “Central India,” i. 12, note.
146 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 137, 207; ii. 28; iii. 18; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 15, 87, 137.
147 Growse, “Mathura,” 128.
148 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 200 sq.
149 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 15.
150 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 379; “Contemporary Review,” xlviii. 108; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 206.
151 Monier-Williams, “Brâhmanism and Hinduism,” 293.
152 Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 153.
153 Gregor, loc. cit., 206; Conway, “Demonology,” i. 53; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 23.
154 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 107; Campbell, “Notes,” 394.
155 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 34.
156 Brand, “Observations,” 450.
157 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 219.
158 “Folk-lore,” i. 155.
159 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 401.
160 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 260.
161 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 10; iii. 90.
162 “Folk-lore,” iv. 257.
163 “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 832; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 126; Wilson, “Essays,” ii. 292; Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 147.
164 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 19.
165 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 83.
166 “Zoological Mythology,” i. 49.
167 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 154.
168 “Bombay Gazetteer,” viii. 159.
169 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 83.
170 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 14, 271; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 305, 546; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 194 sq; “Contemporary Review,” xlviii. 113; Grierson, “Behâr Peasant Life,” 388; “Folk-lore,” ii. 26, 294.
171 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 109; “Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thags,” 9.
172 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 75.
173 “Notes,” 214, 473.
174 “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 264.
175 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 202 sq.
176 “Folk-lore,” iv. 360.
177 “Settlement Report,” 263 sq.
178 Hislop, “Papers,” 19.
179 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 274.
180 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 161.
181 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 12; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 33 sq.
182 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 7; iii. 17; Campbell, “Notes,” 495.
183 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 196.
184 “Bombay Gazetteer,” iii. 220.
185 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 281.
186 “Legend of Perseus,” ii. 320.
187 Temple, “Wide-awake Tales,” 414; “Legends of the Panjâb,” i. Introduction xix.; “Folk-lore,” ii. 236; Miss Cox, “Cinderella,” 504; Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 341; Campbell, “Santâl Folk-tales,” 16; Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 382.
188 Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 157, 206; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 482; Lubbock, “Origin of Civilization,” 37; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 21 sq.
189 Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” i. 49.
190 “Descriptive Ethnology,” 205.
191 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 118, 140.
192 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 118; “Folk-lore,” iv. 245.
193 “Travels in the Himâlaya,” i. 342.
194 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 126, 174, 395; ii. 71; “Bombay Gazetteer,” xiii. 187; Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 218.
195 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 82.
196 Brand, “Observations,” 519.
197 Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 152.
198 Risley, loc. cit., ii. 326.
199 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 204 sq.
200 Dyer, “Popular Customs,” 57.
201 Ibid., 199.
202 Ibid., 398.
203 “Folk-lore,” ii. 310.
204 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 345.
205 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 35.
206 “Remaines,” 95; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 57.
207 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 213.
208 Frazer, “Contemporary Review,” xlviii. 117; Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 195.
209 Campbell, “Notes,” 334.
210 Numbers xix. 15.
211 “Annals,” ii. 542.
212 Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 402; Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 380.
213 Lane, “Arabian Nights,” i. 71; Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales,” 198, 274.
214 Brand, “Observations,” 435.
215 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales of Bengal,” 198, 206; “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 135; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 199.
216 “Folk-lore,” ii. 286.
217 “Notes,” 165.
218 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 25.
219 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 229; ii. 116; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 476; ii. 148, 215.
220 Tawney, loc. cit., ii. 338, 511.
221 “Notes,” 146 sq.
222 Tawney, loc. cit., i. 337, 204; ii. 427, 83.
223 Temple, “Wide-awake Stories,” 317; “Indian Antiquary,” xi. 260 sq.; Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 163.
224 As if from Jaksh, “to eat;” a more probable derivation is Yaksh, “to move,” “to worship.”
225 Spencer Hardy, “Manual of Buddhism,” 269; Conway, “Demonology,” i. 151 sq.
226 “Bombay Gazetteer,” v. 133, 236.
227 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” ii. 17.
228 “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” iii. 117.
229 Ibid., ii. 833; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 56.
230 Ganga Datt, “Folk-lore,” 71.
231 Aubrey, “Remaines,” 59; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 263.
232 Ghoghar in Bombay takes the form of a native seaman or Lascar, “Bombay Gazetteer,” iv. 343.
233 Jacobs, “English Fairy Tales.”
