Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/101

Rh The fire-drill or flint-stone was the symbol of the North in Mexican usage, because the polar point, there and in many regions, was regarded as the primary fire-stone; the central hearth where was perpetually born the divine spirit animating all created forms.

In the recently issued Bulletin (vol. iv., No. i, 1901, p. 55) of the Madras Government Museum, Mr. E. Thurston, director of the Museum, reprints from the Madras Mail (no date given) a full account of a ceremony which took place recently at St. Thomas' Mount, near the city of Madras. The following is a summary of all the essential features. Fire-walking has been observed as an annual festival at Allandur, near St. Thomas' Mount, for more than half a century, and always in connection with the local temple of Draupati, the heroine of the Mahabharata. Draupati successfully passed through the ordeal of walking through fire in order to prove her chastity, and ordained that whoever, placing implicit faith in her powers, should undertake to walk over fire, should get rid of any maladies he might be subject to, and attain all objects of his desire. In Southern India anybody and everybody, with the exception of Pariahs and others occupying a similar status in Hindu society, takes part in the fire-walking ceremony, provided that he or she has any vow to fulfil. The vow-takers are previously purified. First the temple servant walked with measured steps and quite calmly on a platform upon which the fire had been evenly spread to a depth of a few inches, and the space thus covered, about 20 feet square, was ablaze with burning charcoal and embers. The other devotees then rushed in a body up on to the platform and walked over the glowing cinders to the other side, where they cooled their feet in a puddle of water (the pal-kuli or milk pit). A boy of about eight years old walked over the fire, while a still smaller child was hurried over, hanging on to the hand of its father.