Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/200

 174  Hook-Swijigitio^ in India.

belonging to the lower castes assume the profession and dress of Sanyasis for a week or ten days and march about the streets soliciting alms from the people."-^ Criticism of this may safely be left to the reader.

To Dr. ]\I. Phillips we are indebted for the information that hook-swinging is performed after the consent of the goddess Mariamma is obtained. If a lizard is heard chirping at her right side it is regarded as a sign of her consent.-^

Tavernier, writing in the seventeenth century, describes a ceremony which would appear to be closely- related to hook-swinging. He tells us that at Malde (? ?klalda) on the 8th April devotees go out of the city and fasten iron hooks to the boughs of several trees. Then come a great number of poor people, and hang themselves, some by the sides, some by the brawn of their backs, upon these hooks, until, the weight of the body tearing away the flesh, they fall of themselves.--*

Such, then, are the data we have at our disposal. My search, although not exhaustive, has at least been an exten- sive one. and I have no reason to suppose that the carrying of it further would result in nnds of any greater value than have already come to light.

Before proceeding to adumbrate my own theory of the origin and significance of the ceremony, I must, however diffidently and reluctantly, criticise the only serious attempt that up to the present time has been made to deal with it. I allude, of course, to that of Dr. Frazer, in the third edition of Ttie Goldcji BcugJt. With all deference to his authority and acumen, dare I sa\- that he has not gone to the root of the matter? I make bold to do so because I am forced to the conclusion that he has in all probability been misled, or

-• W. J. Wilkins, Mcsini Hinduism, p. 235.
 * M. Phillips, Thi Ezoiuticm of Hinduism, r. 123.

^J. B. Tavemier, Trazels in India, ed. by V. Ball, trans, from French Edition of 1676, vol. ii., p. 254-