Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/93

Rh to a long stick, and move it over the hole. The lizard hears the rustle, thinks it is a snake, and that he may as well give in at once. So he puts out his tail from the hole, that he may not see his executioner. The sportsman catches hold.—If this be true, it is a most extraordinary instance of the fascination of snakes. But the writer states that he has not seen this himself. (See further, in 210.)

125. The Bawariyas have a special dialect, sometimes supposed to be a thieves' slang ; but "the women and children most commonly speak it; while the men, at all events in their intercourse with their neighbours, speak the ordinary Bāgri or Panjabi," which points another way.

126. Hoshiarpur. Modified exogamy. Infanticide of female children, at the doing of which a piece of sugar is placed on the child's tongue, a skein of cotton on her breast, and this rhyme said two or three times:—

127. Sirsa.—The Twenty-nine Precepts of the Bishnoi sect.

160. Weapons of Flint or other Stone.

161. Professional Tiger-killers in Assam.

162. Accounts of the people of the Malāna Valley. They make images of cows, and sacrifice to them. They burn the dead; have vague rules of exogamy. A high rounded stone as image of deity. One worshipped under form of a trident by shepherds. They allow two brothers (but not more) to have one wife.

163-170. Problems in rhyme.

171. Lending of wives or daughters to an honoured guest.

206. Curious Kol festival (once every twelve years). Girls, wearing turbans, go in procession armed with sticks, spears, and axes. (Disguise.) They make raids on neighbouring villages, and no resistance is allowed.

207. Durability of hæmatite drawings on sandstone rocks.

208. Arithmetical puzzles for boys.

209. Mock combat of slings between boys.

212. Santals.—Prostitution compulsory for each girl once in her life.

213. Death Customs (Agarwala Baniyas). Gold placed in the mouth.

130. The Manjhi Girl anaand [sic] the Bamboo.—Brothers kill and eat their sister, from whose bones a bamboo springs. Every night the girl used to come out of the bamboo and walk about. The King catches her and marries her.