The Satî and the Pitri.
The connection between the special worship of the Satî and that of the Pitri or sainted dead will have been remarked. In many places the Satî represents the company of the venerated ancestors and is regarded as the guardian mother of the village, and in many of the rustic shrines of this class the same connection with the Pitri is shown in another interesting way. The snake is, as we shall see, regarded as a type of the household deity, which is often one of the deified ancestors, and so, in the Satî shrine we often see a snake delineated in the act of rising out of the masonry, as if it were the guardian mother snake arising to receive the devotion of her descendants.
The Satî having thus secured the honour of deification by her sacrifice, is able to protect her worshippers and gratify their desires. Some are even the subject of special honour, such as Sakhû Bâî, who is worshipped at Akola.[24] Even the Drâvidian Kaurs of Sarguja worship a deified Satî, another link connecting the cultus with the aboriginal races. She has a sacred grove, and every year a fowl is sacrificed to her, and every third year a goat. Col. Dalton[25] observes that the Hindus who accompanied him were intensely amused at the idea of offering fowls to a Satî, who is accustomed to the simpler bloodless tribute of milk, cakes, fruit and flowers. This is the form of the offering at Jilmili, the Satî shrines belonging to the local Râja. The curses of a dying Satî were greatly feared. Numerous instances of families ruined in this way are told both in Râjputâna and in Nepâl, the last places where the rite is occasionally performed.[26]
The arrangements for the cremation varied in different places. In Western India she sat in a specially built grass hut, and keeping her husband’s head in her lap, supported it with her right hand, while she kindled the hut with a torch held in her left hand. Nowadays in Nepâl the husband and the Satî are made to lie side by side on the pyre. The woman’s right hand is put under the husband’s neck, and round her face are placed all kinds of inflammable substances. Three long poles of undried wood are laid over the bodies—one over the legs, the second over the chest, and the third over the neck. Three men on either side press down the poles till the woman is burnt to death. There have been cases in which the wretched victim tried to escape, and was dragged back by force to her death.
A curious modification of the practice of Satî, which so far has been traced only in Râjputâna, is what is known as Mâ Satî, or mother Satî, where the mother immolates herself with her dead child. Colonel Powlett[27] remarks that in inquiring about it one is often told that it is really Mahâ Satî, or “the great Satî.” He adds that there can be no doubt that mother Satî really prevails, but was confined to the sandy and desert tract, where domestic affection is said to be stronger than elsewhere. “In one large remote village I found five monuments to Mother Satîs, one a Chhatri or pavilion of some pretensions. A Râjput lady from Jaysalmer was on a visit to her father’s family with her youngest son. The boy was thrown when exercising his pony, dragged in the stirrup and killed. His mother became Satî with her son’s body, and probably her example, for she was a person of some rank, led to the subsequent practice of Mâ Satî in the same district.”