Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/327

Rh regarded as taboo or "sacred," not necessarily a totem, from that very early period when the Indo-Aryans and their kinsmen the Iranians still formed one united community. At this stage of culture the kinship of man with the animal world, and particularly with the domesticated cattle of the tribe, was fully recognised; and, as is not uncommon with tribes in the pastoral or agricultural stage of culture, the kinsmen by the periodical sacrifice and ritualistic eating of the flesh of the sacred animal sought to gain communion with the divine. In later days, when the foreigner, an eater of beef, entered the land and became to some extent Hinduized, it became unnecessary for him to abandon his usual food, because its consumption had now acquired a local ritualistic sanction. We have seen that traces of this communal sacrifice may still be traced among the Kafirs, and particularly among the Todas, and that the rite is still performed in effigy by certain castes or tribes. Gradually, for reasons which are at present obscure, a feeling of humanitarianism spread through northern India, which resulted in the restriction of blood sacrifices and the sacramental eating of the victim. But the use of beef was not immediately discontinued among the imperfectly Hinduized foreigners, and still holds its ground among the menial and forest tribes. If this view be accepted, it supplies an interesting parallel to the theory of Professor Ridgeway, that the flesh-roasting and flesh-eating AchǢans were a foreign tribe which migrated from northern Europe into Greece. The association of Buddhism with the Kshatriya or warrior group helps to furnish an explanation of the comparative indifference of the new faith towards the Brahman cult of the cow. With the rise of the neo-Brahmanism the protection and veneration of the cow were revived and extended. The cult of Mother Earth now adopted into orthodox beliefs, the ascetic missionary organisation, the introduction of the worship, of Siva with the