Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/215

  Hook-Szv7}ioi)io in India. 189

described by Thurston, the goddess Mariamma and the effigy were first conducted to and worshipped at a tank,'^'' and I am incHned to suspect that the date at which the ceremony is generally performed in Bengal, coupled with the fact that Sir \V. W. Hunter used to hear vague rumours among the aboriginal tribes to the south-west of Beerbhoom of human sacrifice being resorted to with a view to pro- curing the early arrival of the rains,^^ lends colour to the theory that it is, or was, in part intended to influence the coming of the rainy season, which normally arrives about six weeks later. I am partly drawn towards this view by the fact that the self-same people whom I saw perform- ing the ceremon}' hold what is obviously a rudimentary form of a fertility ceremony more directly connected with the earth about four months earlier, when, at a certain sacred spot at the junction of the Damodar and Gowai rivers, they bury one or more men to the neck in the ground, leaving them there for two or three hours, and sprinkling the surface in the immediate neighbourhood of the victim with red paint in imitation of blood. '^^ That the Meriali itself was held to influence the monsoon season is, of course, well known,*"'-* and if any doubt about this

^^ Supra, p. 169.

'■ Sir W. W. Hunter, The Annals of Rural Bengal, vol. i., p. 128.

time takes up his abode in a small round stone lying among the rocks at the confluence of the two rivers. The stone in question is thought or said to appear only once a year on the date of the ceremony, after which it is supposed to vanish. The red paint is poured round the necks of those who are buried in order that they may appear to be beheaded. There is great rejoicing, dancing, and drinking indulged in by both men and women. The ceremony, so far as my information goes, is a Santali one, but is frequented by all the people of the neighbourhood, irrespective of tribe.
 * " This ceremony also is said to be in honour of the god Siva, who at this

to a form of the Meriah sacrifice described by Macpherson, op. cit., p. 130, in which "the victim was put to death slowly by fire. A low stage was formed, sloping on either side like a roof; upon it they laid the victim, his limbs wound round with cords to confine his struggles. Fires were then lighted and
 * ' J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the IVild, vol. i., p. 24S, referring