Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/45

 Rh other communities in South India, but it is not common. This strange form of it is quite unique. Of course, we have another form of it not far from here—in Ireland—where the feasting seems to be more drinking than eating. Everyone entering the room bends over the corpse and drinks a glass of whisky to begin with.

I have said nothing of the religion of the Kullens. The Brahminical religion, the worship of Siva and Vishnu in their endless forms, incarnations and so on, is very largely influenced by the more primitive cult which underlies it throughout the Presidency. The higher seems to have had little or no effect on the lower, but the lower has had considerable influence over the higher.

As we go south we find the lower and, I believe, earlier cult becoming more distinct, and in the extreme south it is most separated. The profound influence of this lower cult, in the south, cannot be overlooked by the most casual observer. But it is not so easy to say, "it is this," or "it is that," more especially when we are estimating a people whose habit of thought is utterly different from our own.

What is commonly (in my opinion, wrongly) called Demonolatry finds its strongest expression in the southernmost district—Tinnevelly, which, by-the-bye, contains more Christians than the whole of India put together. Every image of a goddess is sword in hand, and doing something bloody; eating her children, usually, or a child in one hand as if being eaten, another at her feet about to be eaten. Perhaps it is in Tinnevelly that the goats have the worst time of it. During certain festivals they are sacrificed by the thousand to the deities of the lower cult.

I thank you all for your kindness in having listened to me. Whether you all believe in the power of folk-lore and the help it promises to give us concerning the earlier part of man's history, you must feel that intimacy with uncultured man is otherwise beneficial and helpful towards