Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/308

 286 The Veneration of the Cozv m India.

first-fruits, it may be used only with careful precaution, and this may supply a better explanation of similar Indian customs than if we suppose it to represent an offering to Mother Earth.^^ " When this article of food acquires con- siderable value, both because of its practical importance and because of the primary adjustments necessitated in caring for it, situations repeatedly arise which necessitate secondary adjustments in order that due regard may be shown to the pre-existing sanctity, or in order that it may be preserved intact in the new relations, or that no injury may come to its possessors when its sanctity is in a way violated, as, for instance, when it is removed from its accustomed environment. These secondary processes, de- signed to preserve its value, not only accomplish that end, but even greatly enhance it.""^-

The prevalence of the milk taboo among tribes scattered over a wide area in India suggests that at one time it may have been almost universal. It is at present not found in those regions most completely under Brahman influence, and its disappearance here may have been due to the use of milk in offerings to the gods in lieu of animal sacrifices, to Brahman objection to customs of the indigenous tribes, or to some economic consideration which we do not at present understand. At the present time w^e find the taboo in force among some of the Indo-Chinese races, among isolated tribes along the Himalaya, or at its foot, and among some peoples in central and southern India.

Beginning from the extreme north and west, it prevails among the Dards of Kashmir, who are now only just beginning to overcome it since they have come under the

Ibbetson, Punjab Ethnography, p. 114; K. V. Russell, Central Provinces District Gazetteers : Davioh District, vol. A, p. 54 ; cf. the rite of making an oblation of wine at the Greek Pithoigia, "so that the whole may be released from tabu," Miss J. E. Harrison, Thetnis, p. 277.
 * ^ A. J. N. Tremearne, The Tailed Head-Hiniters of Nigeria, p. 243 ; Sir D.


 * '- 1. King, The Development of Religion, pp. \20 et seq.