Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/439

 The Principles of Fasting. 397

and we can cut up this fish in safety, and it shall be fairly portioned out to this one, and to that one, and to that other." But as soon as Maui had gone, his brothers began at once to eat food, and to cut up the fish. Had Maui previously reached the sacred place, the heart of the deity would have been appeased with the offering of a portion of the fish which had been caught by his disciples, and all the male and female deities would have partaken of their portions of the sacrifice. But now the gods turned with wrath upon them, on account of the fish which they had thus cut up without having made a fitting sacrifice.^

Among many peoples custom prescribes fasting after a death. Lucian says that at the funeral feast the parents of the deceased are prevailed upon by their relatives to take food, being almost prostrated by a three days' fast.^ We are told that among the Hindus children fast three days after the death of a parent, and a wife the same period after the death of her husband ; ^ but according to a more recent statement, to be quoted presently, they do not altogether abstain from food. In one of the sacred books of India it is said that mourners shall fast during three days, and that, if they are unable to do so, they shall subsist on food bought in the market or given unasked."* Among the Nayadis of Malabar " from the time of death until the funeral is over, all the relations must fast."^ Among the Irulas of the Neilgherries "the relatives of the deceased fast during the first day, that is, if. . . the death occur after the morning meal, they refrain from the evening one, and eat nothing till the next morning. If it occur during the night, or before the

1 Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 26 sq. "^ Lucian, De Itictii, 24.

3 Ward, Viav of the History, etc. of Che Hindoos, ii. 76 sq. ■* Vasishtha, iv. 14 sq, Cf. Institutes of Vish>iu, xix. 14. ''Thurston, in the Madras Government Museum's Bulletin, iv. 76.