Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/165

Rh When, in various parts of India, we see men submitting themselves, on almost a wholesale scale, to suspension and rotation by means of hooks thrust through the fleshy part of their backs, we may rest assured that, either in the rite itself there is or has been some imagined efficacy, or that it is a rudimentary and modified form of some earlier rite.

The accompanying photographs were taken by me at a hook-swinging festival held in a small village in the Manbhum district of Chota Nagpur on May 1st, 191 2. The village in question is situated near the Damodar river in about lat. 23-50 N. long. 88-40 E., and was one of several in the same neighbourhood in which a similar festival took place about that time. It will be seen that, by means of a rope fastened to two hooks passed through the fleshy portion of either side of the victim's back, he is suspended thirty or forty feet above the ground from the longer end of a stout pole pivoted on a firmly planted upright round which it is free to revolve and on which it may also, when necessary, be moved in a vertical plane, the only object of the latter movement being to allow the victim, before rotation commences, to be raised well clear of the staging on which the lashing to the horizontal pole takes place. Photograph No. 1 (Plate I.) shows the man being thus gently raised. To the opposite or shorter end of the horizontal pole a sort of platform is hung, and this is sometimes occupied by just as many persons as are necessary to effect a correct balance, and maintained by them at such a height that their feet can reach the ground and cause the necessary rotation. This method of rotation and balance is sometimes varied by men running round holding the ropes by which the platform is suspended, photographs Nos. 2 and 3 (Plates II. and III.) indicating more or less clearly what occurs. Photographs No. 3, 4, 5, and 6 (Plates III., IV., and V.) show the platform upon which the man is bound and the ladder by which he ascends to it. In No. 6 (Plate V.) the victim has his back to the camera, and is