Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/208

 i82 Hook-Swinging in India.

it is peculiarly a ceremony of the lower classes, among whom, of course, the aboriginal or semi-aboriginal element often predominates. Sonnerat tells us that the Brahmans do not assist at but despise the ceremony/^ and Hoole states that swinging is neither practised nor sanctioned by the Brahmans, and that he never observed any but the lower classes of Hindoos conducting or participating in the ceremony.*'^ Again, in the reports furnished to the Madras Government in 1853 two of the Magistrates re- corded that it was a festival of the lower classes^'' In the myth purporting to account for the institution of the custom in the part where my photographs were taken it is expressly stated that only the lower castes are required actually to swing.'** On the contrary, there is only the statement of the compiler of the Bankura Gazetteer to the effect that the Santalis are as eager to swing as the Hindus.*^ Respect- able Hindus from the Punjab, Bengal, and the. Central Provinces to whom I have spoken about the ceremony have professed complete ignorance even of the existence of such a rite, and I suspect that, when the Brahman or high caste Hindu has any finger in the pie, it is inserted in the hope of extracting therefrom not so much spiritual benefit as something of a more tangible and concrete nature. We have in " hook-swinging " a ceremony of more or less common occurrence in Dravidian India, apparently unknown in other parts, unmentioned in the sacred books of the Hindus, and reported to be a ceremony of the lower castes or classes even in the parts where it is best known. The general conclusion that, whatever its origin, it is an aboriginal rite would appear then to be established. That periodically, or in times of special personal or tribal crisis, human sacrifices have been offered on a far larger scale and at a very much later date by the aboriginal peoples than the Aryan ones is hardly matter of controversy. We

'^^ Supra, p. 159. '^^ Supra, p. i6o. ^"^ Supra, pp. 161-2.


 * ^ Supra, p. 154. ^^ Supra, p. 172.