Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/283

 Balochi JP'olklore. 267

the less wealthy, and among the hill-tribes a good deal of liberty is allowed. One of the customs is for the women to form bands, to which no man is admitted, and to roam about the mountains together. They are never molested, and one of the most honourable characteristics of the Baloches is that they never kill or otherwise molest women or children in their raids. A boy may not be killed until he has been formally declared to be a man by being invested with the Baloch equivalent of the toga virilis, that is, the shalwdr or baggy trousers worn by men. This garment he assumes at the age of about fifteen. He is then a man, and may legitimately be killed.

Any insult to women is gravely resented. I once met with a case among the Lasharis. Two men had a quarrel, and one of them went to the other's hut in his absence, found only his mother there, and insulted her by tearing off her phashk, or bodice. Her son thereupon challenged him to fight. A spot was appointed, and each came to the rendezvous with one companion. They were armed with swords and shields, but threw away their shields and carved at each other with their swords as long as they could stand. I heard of the fight, but too late to prevent it, and after a twenty-mile ride through a fiery hot wind I arrived in time to see two corpses and two wounded men being carried into the little frontier fort of Sabzilkot. They had fought on the bare smooth plain, known as patt, a little way from the fort, and the ground was saturated with their blood.

In quite recent years a desperate feud between the Leg- hari and Gurchani tribes followed upon an insult in connec- tion with a breach of promise of marriage put upon the Chief of the Gurchanis. This Chief had a blot in his pedigree, owing to his father's mother having been a dancing-girl. His own mother was Baloch, but he was still not quite rein- stated as of the true blood, and was very anxious to get a bride of good family. He succeeded at length in getting