Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/358

 350 Miscellmtea.

408. A low-caste man chosen for an expiatory festival, and reverenced as a god, while his wife is a goddess. Phallic ceremony.

409. Folk-lore of the Vindhya, omens, etc. Spitting three times when a star falls.

432. Evil spirits, male and female. One lives in a banyan orbel tree. Another (female) calls the householder out. He follows into the woods, and is there found mad in the morning (like the vvjiKpo- XrjTrros). A piece of iron is a protective charm.

434. Gorakhpur. — Local gods. Legend of Chaiibah Baba, whose " image was nothing but an earthen elephant." Sacrifices of goats and buffaloes ; the sacrificer has his forehead marked with the blood. Akiiara ki Bhiwani (f.) is also represented as an elephant. Worship when there is sickness. A third is worship almost exclusively at marriages.

435. Mimicry. — When a Brahman's body has been touched, after death, by one of a lower caste, the burning is done over again. An image is made out of all sorts of things, twigs for the limbs, cocoanut for the head, shells for eyes, and so on. It is coated with pulse to represent flesh, and a deerskin represents the skin of the man. It is then duly burned (Muzaffarnagar).

436. Cerejnofiies at sinking of a well. — One of them is to smear red powder in five places, tie grass and thread, and make a fire sacrifice. In the well is cast cow dung, cow's milk, cow's urine, and leaves and honey : same for a tank, or a temple of Shiva.

438. Exorcising an Evil Spirit. — A woman hired three exorcists, who trampled on her and kicked her about so that finally she died.

439. Hoshyarpur. — The Bhabras will not eat or drink in the dark. They may not peel vegetables or prepare them for cooking, but do not mind cooking and eating them if some one else does the peeling.

Anthropology.

362. Women in Kulu, Lahaiil, Spiti (Tibet). — A niaqpa is a man married to an heiress ; he is her property, whom she may divorce at will. In Ktdu, a widow may keep a paramour so long as she does not quit her husband's house.

364. Shaft jahanpur. — Marriage celebrated inter alia by walking round a post ; bridegroom crowned with a twig. See also 367.

369. Palamau, the Bhrijiyas. — Torchlight dance ; men apparently disguised as peacocks.

412. Birth, Circumcision, Betrothal. (Mahomedans of Upper Ganges and Jumna.) — For the birth, a woman is put in a separate house. Things to eat and to wear are sent from her father's house. On the sixth, seventh, or ninth day (it varies) the mother leaves this chamber for the first time ; takes the child in her arms ; she comes out