Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/97

Rh but every bride, no matter where she lives, must report in person to the nat-ôk, or high priest. Each natkădaw attending the Taungbyôn festival brings with her the images of the gods she worships, and ranges these on a shelf in her booth, where she tells the fortune of anyone who pays the fee demanded.

Mr. Rodway Swinhoe, of Mandalay, has a beautiful golden image of a naked boy in an attitude of prayer, said to be one of twelve which surrounded King Thibaw's bed. No doubt these represented the twelve spirits, six good and six evil, which are believed to watch over the life of every Burman. It is for fear of offending the good spirits that a Burman always avoids stripping himself naked, even when changing his clothes in a closed room.

Sacrifices.—The practice of sacrificing individual lives for the good of the community, which is so utterly opposed to Buddhist teaching, may be traced in Burma at the present day in all its stages, from the slaughter of a human victim to the mere offer of plantains at a shrine. A few miles beyond the administrative border of the Upper Chindwin District a boy or girl is annually bought from a distant village and killed with much ceremony, the blood being sprinkled on the rice which is to be used as seed. The people here are Nagas, but they are indistinguishable from Burmans when they wear similar clothing, and speak an allied language. Farther south, where civilized influences have made themselves felt, the Nagas have substituted cattle for human beings. In villages along the Chindwin people calling themselves Burman Buddhists still sacrifice fowls annually to the god of the harvest, though the thing is done somewhat surreptitiously and shamefacedly, and if enquiries are made from a villager