Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/309

 The Veneration of the Cow in India. 287

rule of Islam. *^ In Assam the Khasis, Kacharis, Rabhas, Garos, Nagas, and Daphlas all regard milk as "unclean," and the Kukis do not milk their cattle.^^ Mr. T. C. Hodson, however, tells me that in Meithei there are two terms, namitngba, " forbidden with a quasi-automatic sanc- tion," and Jiaondaba, " unusual, not customary." " If a Meithei told me that such and such a thing was nanmngba, I took him to mean that, if he did or ate the thing, he would suffer for it, in fact, that the sacred element would work against him. But if he did what was not customary, I see no sanction beyond the feeling that, as L. T. Hob- house, {Transaciiojis of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, vol. ii., p. 435) put the case, for the individual, custom has something of the force of habit and more than habit. The abstinence from milk, both of cows and buffaloes, is general, yet they eat freely of the flesh of cattle." Here the taboo has crystallised into custom. In the Punjab milk and gJiiox clarified butter made from it are subject to the usual taboo attaching to first-fruits. After a cow has calved, the Batwals do not eatghi until some has been offered to a Brahman ; the Kaler Jats give the first milk of a cow or buffalo to a virgin, and, if it be abundant, to other girls as well, these people being free from the risk of violat- ing the taboo.^^ In the same province a Khatri mother never drinks milk after the birth of a child.*® In the hill country south of the Ganges, the Savaras, though they hold milk in abhorrence, use it in offerings to their gods.*'' The Kols and Hos plough with cows as well as oxen, but they make no other use of the cow, and Dr. Ball found it difficult

■*" Ghulam Muhammad, Monoirs Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. i., p. 94; F. Drew, op. cit., p. 42S.

■*■* P. R. T. Gurdon, The Khasis, pp. 51, 159; S. Endle, The Kacharis, p. 15 ; T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipiir, p. 1S2 ; A. Playfair, The Garos, p. 50 ; T. H. Lewin, The Hill Tracts oj Chittagong, p. 104.


 * ^H. A. Rose, op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 68, 439.

'^^ Ibid., vol. ii., p. 525. ^"Thurston, op. cit,, vol. vi., p. 334.