Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/319

 The Veneration of the Coiv in India. 297

writers, and the same rule was followed in the ancient Brahmanical sacrifice, as is still the case among the modern Brahmans of south India and some of the forest tribes.^^ So, according to the Vedic sacrificial rule, the priest, while slaying the victim, took care to avert his eyes, and after the animal was killed he called out, — " Far may be the consequences of murder from us ! " ^^

Survivals of this custom of eating the sacred animal after sacrifice, or an image of the god, are still found among some of the Indian tribes. The semi-Hinduised Gonds, who, like all converts, are careful about ritual observances, carry their dread of pollution so far as to have their faggots sprinkled with water before they are used in cooking, and, if at dinner-time a Brahman or a "crow," both regarded as "sacred" or taboo, approach, the whole of the food is considered polluted and thrown away. Yet these people are compelled, every four or five years, to visit the shrine of Bara Deo, their tribal deity, and in his presence they are forced to eat the meat of a sacrificed cow, as a sacramental meal. But, as a compromise, they now make only a pretence of eating it, merely touching it after holding a cloth before their mouths. ^° The Darzis or tailors of Kathiawar are considered by their neighbours impure because, at their marriage feasts, they off"er and probably eat, as a communal act, the image of a cow made of molasses.^^ One clan of Bhils make an image of a

Hindu Manners, Customs, etc. (3rd ed. ), p. 510; M. Haug, The Aitareya Brahvianani, vol. ii., p. 85 ; L. F. Begbie and A. E. Nelson, Gazetteer of Chanda District, vol. i., p. 132; R. V. Russell, Gazetteer of Niniar, vols, i., iii. On the custom of strangling sacrificial animals see J- G. Frazer, Adonis, Atiis, Osiris (2nd ed.), p. 404.
 * Rivers, (7/. cit., pp. 288, 278 ei sec/.; Strabo, xv., 54; Abbe Dubois,


 * ' Haug, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 89 ; Satapatha B7-ahiHana, vol. iii., pp. 8, i, 15.

^'' S. Hislop, Papers relating to the Aboriginal 7'ribes of the Central Provinces, p. 5 ; Sir C. A. Elliott, Settlement Report of the Hoshangabad District, p. 69.

^1 Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. ix., pt. ij, p. 503.