Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/213

 "" Hook-Sivhigiiig''' in India. 187

for example, he was led round a black stone prior to suspension, while in other cases he is hung from a car which is drawn round a temple or other area, a perform- ance that points to just the possibility that, if the sacrifice of several victims at Malkanagiri had ever been replaced by the sacrifice of one, he might perhaps first have been taken round on a car to the various points. At Jeypore, where it would appear that the idea was partly to offer in different directions, the rotation of one victim occurs as a possible substitute for the sacrifice of a larger number. It is interesting here to note that at Rayagada in the Vizaga- patam district there was a black slab called the Janni potJioro or priest's stone, on which human sacrifices are said to have been offered and which the hill people still regard with awe and refuse to touch.^^ This perambulation of the altar by the victim could, no doubt, be very freely paralleled elsewhere. In Baroda, for example, "at the worship of Vagh Deo, the tiger god, a man is covered with a blanket, bows to the image, and walks round it seven times. During this performance the worshippers slap him on the back. He tries to escape to the forest, pursued by the children, who fling balls of clay at him and finally bring him back, the rite ending with feasting and drinking."'''^ At Salamis, in historical times, the victim ran thrice round the altar at the temple of Diomede before being stabbed by the priest.*"^

Other minor points of resemblance between the Meriah sacrifice and hook-swinging are perhaps worth noting. It was a feature of the former that the victim should be pur- chased, and we find that in the Kistna district the swingers were paid from one to four rupees, and when the man who was accustomed to pay them left the village the practice of hook-swinging had to be discontinued. This is in striking

^'^ Ibid., p. 302.

'"■^J. A. Dalai, Census Keporl, Baroda, 1901, cited in article " Dravidians," Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. v., p. 16.
 * J. G. Frazer, Adonis Attis Osiris, vol. i., p. 145.