Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/159

 "HOOK-SWINGING" IN INDIA.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE CEREMONY, AND AN ENQUIRY INTO ITS ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE.

BV J. H. POWELL, M.A.

{Read at Meeting, December ijth, 191 3.)

From such records as are available it would appear that within comparatively recent times "hook-swinging" was a rite of common occurrence in certain parts of India ; but, with the advance of a higher civilization and under the influence, direct and indirect, of British rule, there has not only arisen an increasing reluctance to practise it in the presence of Europeans, but in many places where in former years the ceremony was regularl}' observed it has now been altogether discontinued, or, as will appear, replaced by a milder form from which all elements of cruelty have dis- appeared. But that there are even now villages, and those not necessarily far removed in jungle fastnesses, where the rite is still being carried out in most of its original barbarity, is not open to doubt.

What follows will be the better understood if at this point it is made clear that the term "hook-swinging" is a misnomer which appears to have had a tendency to mislead those who have attempted to understand the ceremony. In the vernaculars of the country "hook-swinging" is variously known as charak-puja, pota-puja, khidi-niari, bliokta-puja, chata-parab, soodaloo, and silloo. I am not competent to deal with or even translate all these phrases, but I might perhaps say that in Hindustani charak means