Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/210

 184 '■^ Hook- Swinging'' in India.

sacrifices, others are made by single mootahs, and even by- individuals, to avert any threatening calamity from sickness, murrain, or other cause." ^^ I draw attention to this feature of the Meriah sacrifice, not mainly because it is perhaps apt to be overlooked, but because if, as I suspect to be the case, there is any connection between the Meriah sacrifice and " hook-swinging," it is important that it should not be forgotten that there was much the same irregularity of time and variety of motive in the performance of what have been described as Meriah sacrifices as we find to be the case with " hook-swinging." In other words, I wish to anticipate the possible objection that, because "hook-swinging" cannot be shown to be always an annual fertilisation ceremony, therefore it can have no relation to the Meriah, by pointing out that the latter was often offered from other than fertilisation motives. That the sacrifice was carried out in different ways is, of course, well known, but I suspect that the ritual varied with locality and the idiosyncrasies of the performers rather than with the occasion, and that Meriah or human sacrifices for other purposes than the benefit of the crops were performed on the fertility sacrifice pattern. We have it recorded that

"one of the most common ways of offering the sacrifice in Chinna Kimedi is to the effigy of an elephant . . . rudely carved in wood, fixed on the top of a stout post, on which it is made to revolve. After the performance of the usual ceremonies, the intended victim is fastened to the proboscis of the elephant, and, amidst the shouts and yells of the excited multitude of Khonds, is rapidly whirled round, when, at a given signal by the officiating Zanee or priest, the crowd rush in, seize the Meriah, and with their knives cut the flesh off the shrieking wretch as long as Hfe remains. He is then cut down, the skeleton burnt, and the horrid orgies are over. In several villages I counted as many

^- Mr. Russel's report in Selectiotis from the. Records, Government of India, No. v., •' Human Sacrifice and Infanticide" (1154), quoted by E. Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, p. 5 1 1.