Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/193

Rh the food-taboo for evidence on the question. It is not wholly wanting. But what must strike every attentive reader is the small amount and the inconclusive character it betrays. We may take as a favourable specimen the first tribe described in the book. The Agariya, a Dravidian tribe found, few in numbers, in the hill-country of Mirzapur, is divided into seven exogamous septs, whose origin is set down by Mr. Crooke as totemistic. The septs, or clans, are those of the Markâm (tortoise), Goirâr (a kind of tree), Paraswân (the palása tree), Sanwân (said to be derived from san, hemp), Baragwâr (the bar tree, Ficus Indica), Banjhakwâr (said to be from beng, frog), and Gidhlê (vulture). The taboos correspond: the animals named may not be killed or eaten by the septs bearing their names, and the trees and hemp may not be cut or used. But beyond these the flesh of monkeys, horses, crocodiles, lizards, and snakes is tabooed, apparently by the entire tribe. While the only tree for which they have any active veneration is the sál tree (Shorea robusta), a tree held sacred by more than one of the Dravidian races. No legend of descent is given. The sacrificial and festival customs have, so far as appears, no reference to the totems. The tribal occupation is that of iron-smelters, and the tribal deity consequently is Lohâsur Devi, the goddess of iron, who is worshipped with sacrifice of a she-goat. The village-godlings receive worship at their own shrines, and are obviously local or communal deities. Besides these, there are the ancestors worshipped by their families; but (though the statements on the subject are a little difficult to reconcile) none but the immediate father and mother are distinguished in any manner. Descent is in the male line. The only rule of exogamy is consistent with totemism, namely, that no one may marry within the sept. Tattooing is practised, but has no relation to descent, and the marks enumerated do not include any of the seven objects from which the clans are named.

Here either the revolutions and mixture of blood have so changed the earlier customs of the tribe as to efface the most striking elements of totemism, or totemism was never fully developed. The first alternative is not impossible. There is evidence that the tribe is being penetrated by Hinduism, as in fact almost all the aboriginal tribes are. But the other alternative cannot be excluded otherwise than by assuming the universality and complete development of totemism at an early period