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44 and three red aniline marks are made with the fingers on each stone. According to the belief of the people these stones represented in some places, the cholera or small-pox goddess; in others, the goddess Ganesa, in others again ancestors. It seems to me probable that the original meaning of the three red marks was a consecration to the ancestors, and that their connection with small-pox is more modern.

At this moment I have no more evidence as to the religious use of the three marks, but I have drawn attention to this in the hope that others more qualified than I to speak on various points may be able to fill up the deficiencies.

On the other hand the three marks appear as a more practical symbol. In the picture-writing of the Egyptians they are placed after a word and mean then that the word is in the plural.

There is possibly an original connection between these two ideas—"the dead" and "the many", for the dead are distinguished in superstition precisely by appearing as a company, not as individuals.

The whole matter then is connected with the ancient use of the number three, as I have shown in another connection. In many myths or tales three is the greatest or at least the most important and typical number of people brought on the scene in a company. Three means something that is neither one nor two, & has come to be fixed as a standing expression for "the many", — and consequently for "the dead".