Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/73

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A fuller account is given in the same author's Golden Bough. He adds that a draught of the water in which the shell has been washed is supposed to purge away all sin and secure temporal welfare. These fossils are found in Nepaul on the upper Gandaka, a tributary of the Ganges. Hence the district is called Salagrami, and is considered holy, and an object of pilgrimage. In a letter of May 26th, 191 1, Mr. W. Crooke wrote me:—

"The Salagrama, to which numerous references are given by Frazer in his new Golden Bough (Pt. i., ii., 26 f.) is undoubtedly a very ancient "fetish." It was specially adopted as a symbol of