Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/320

298 dog, their sacred animal, in flour, and eat it. They have invented an aetiological legend to explain the practice, asserting that one of their ancestors once ate a puppy by mistake for a hare. The Komatis of Madras make an image of a cow in flour, cut it up with implements shaped like those used by the beef-eating castes, and distribute, according to a fixed rotation, joints of the image to certain families. At a wedding among the Malas of the same province an image of their tribal goddess, Sunkalamma, is made of rice and gram; offerings are laid before it, and a ram or he-goat is sacrificed; the worshippers prostrate themselves in silence, and then divide and eat the goddess. This ceremonial distribution of the joints of the victim was a rule in the old Hindu sacrifices, and, when it was described by Dr. Rájendralála Mitra, was a shock to modern orthodox Hindus. The same rule was in force among the Semites and the Greeks of Cos. At the death feast of the Assam Nāgas there are equally precise rules for the distribution of portions of the victim among the relatives of the dead man and the family priest.

As was the rule among the Semites, the early Hindu law-givers directed that the flesh of the victim, after dedication, might be eaten, and this rule is still in force among various Indian tribes. For instance, the flesh of the Toda victims is openly sold in the bazars. It is still more remarkable that such food is permitted to two tribes of