Tattooing.
Next come special marks made on the body. Such are the marks branded on various parts of their bodies by many classes of ascetics, and the caste marks made in clay or ashes by most high-class Hindus. It has been suggested that many of these marks are of totemistic origin. That this is so among races beyond the Indian border is almost certainly the case.[73] But though tattooing, a widespread practice of the Indian people, very possibly originated in totemism, still, as far as has hitherto been ascertained, no distinct trace remains of a tribal tattoo, and it is safer at present to class marks of this kind in the general category of devices to repel evil spirits. Among purely sectarial marks we have the forehead mark of the Saivas, composed of three curved lines like a half-moon, to which is added a round mark on the nose; it is made with the clay of the Ganges, or with sandal-wood, or the ashes of cowdung, the ashes being supposed to represent the disintegrating force of the deity. The mark of the Vaishnavas is in the form of the foot of Vishnu, and consists of two lines rather oval drawn the whole length of the nose and carried forward in straight lines across the forehead. It is generally made with the clay of the Ganges, sometimes with the powder of sandal-wood. The Sâkta forehead mark is a small semi-circular line between the eyebrows, with a dot in the middle.
The practice of tattooing is common both among the Aryan and Drâvidian races, but is more general among the lower than the higher castes. Thus, the Juâng women tattoo themselves with three strokes on the forehead just over the nose, and three on each of the temples. They attach no meaning to the marks, have no ceremony in adopting them, and are ignorant of the origin of the practice. The Khariya women make three parallel marks on the forehead, the outer lines terminating at the ends in a crook, and two on each temple. The Ho women tattoo themselves in the form of an arrow, which they regard as their national emblem. The Birhor women tattoo their chests, arms, and ankles, but not their faces. The Orâon women have three marks on the brow and two on each temple. The young men burn marks on their fore-arms as part of the ordeal ceremony; girls, when adult, or nearly so, have themselves tattooed on the arms and back. The Kisân women have no such marks; if a female of the tribe indulges herself in the vanity of having herself tattooed, she is at once turned adrift as having degraded herself. Here we may have some faint indications of a tribal tattoo, but among most of the tribes which practise the custom it has become purely protective or ornamental.[74]
Among the Drâvidian tribes of the North-Western Provinces tattooing generally prevails. The Korwas and many other of these tribes get their women tattooed by a woman of the Bâdi sub-division of Nats. They are tattooed only on the breast and arms, not on the thighs. There are no ceremonies connected with it, nor any special pattern. Any girl gets herself tattooed in any figure she approves for a small sum. Well-to-do women always get it done; but if a woman is not tatooed, it is not considered unlucky. The men of the tribe are not tattooed. The Ghasiya women tattoo themselves on the breasts, arms, thighs, and feet. They say that when a woman dies who is not tattooed, the Great Lord Parameswar is displeased and turns her out of heaven, or has her branded with the thorn of the acacia. In the same way among the Chamârs, when a woman who has not been tattooed dies, Parameswar asks her where are the marks and signs which she ought to possess to show that she had lived in the world. If she cannot show them, she will in her next birth be re-born as a Bhûtnî, Pretnî, or Râkshasî.
At present among low-caste women the process of tattooing is regarded as a species of initiation, and usually marks the attainment of puberty. It thus corresponds with the rite of ear-piercing among males. To the east of the North-West Provinces a girl is not allowed to cook until she is tattooed with a mark representing the Sîtâ kî Rasoî or cook-house of Sîtâ, and in Bengal high-caste people will not drink from the hands of a girl who does not wear the Ullikhî or star-shaped tattoo mark between her eyebrows. A Chamâr woman who is not tattooed at marriage will not, it is believed, see her father and mother in the next world. This reminds us of the idea prevalent in Fiji, that women who are not tattooed are liable to special punishment in the land of the dead.[75] In Bombay the custom has been provided with a Brâhmanical legend. One day Lakshmî, the wife of Vishnu, told her husband that whenever he went out on business or to visit his devotees she became frightened. Hearing this, Vishnu took his weapons and stamped them on her body, saying that the marks of his weapons would save her from evil.
Hence women in Bombay tattoo themselves with the figures of the lotus, conch shell, and discus, and from this the present custom is said to have originated.[76]
In Upper India the forms of the tattoo marks fall into various classes. Some are rude or conventionalized representations of animals, plants, and flowers. The operators carry round with them sketches of the different kinds of ornament, and the girl selects these according to taste. The peacock, the horse, the serpent, the scorpion, tortoise, centipede, appear constantly in various forms. Others, again, are representations of jewellery actually worn—necklaces, bracelets, armlets, or rings. Others, again, are purely religious, such as the trident or matted hair of Siva, the weapons of Vishnu, and the cooking house of Sîtâ, the type of wifely virtue. Some of these marks were probably of totemistic origin, but they have now become merely ornamentative, as was the case in Central Asia in the time of Marco Polo, where they were regarded only as “a piece of elegance or a sign of gentility,” and among the Thracians, as described by Herodotus.[77] It may be noticed that in the time of Marco Polo people used to go from Upper India to Zayton in China to be tattooed.[78] These animal forms of tattooing are found also among the Drâvidian tribes of the Central Provinces, where the forms used are a peacock, an antelope, or a dagger, and the marks are made on the back of the thighs and legs. In Bengal tattooing is used as a cure for goitre.[79]
We may close this long catalogue of devices intended to scare spirits, with a number of miscellaneous examples.
It seems to be a well-established principle that evil spirits fear leather. On this is perhaps based the idea of the shoe being a mode of repelling the Evil Eye and the influence of demons. We find this constantly appearing in the folk-lore of the West. Thus, the Highlanders paid particular attention to the leaving of the bridegroom’s left shoe without buckle or latchet, to prevent the secret influences of witches on the wedding night.[80] And Hudibras tells how—
Augustus having by oversight
Put on his left shoe ’fore his right,
Had like to have been slain that day
By soldiers mutinying for pay.”
Maidens in Europe ascertain whether they will be married and who will be their future husbands by throwing the slipper at the new year. The throwing of old shoes at an English wedding seems on the same principle to be based on the idea of scaring the demon of barrenness. According to Mr. Hartland,[81] the gipsies of Transylvania throw old shoes and boots on a newly married pair when they enter their tent, expressly to enhance the fertility of the union.
In the same way in India, people who are too poor to afford another protective place on the top of their houses a shoe heel upwards. This seems to give some additional efficacy to the charm, because we find the same rule in force elsewhere. Thus, in Cornwall, a slipper with the point turned up placed near the bed cures cramp.[82] In Pûna, if a man feels that he has been struck by an incantation, he at once takes hold of an upturned shoe.[83]
The fear which spirits feel for leather is also illustrated by the procedure of the Drâvidian Baiga, who flagellates people suffering from demoniacal possession with a tawse or leathern strap. In the Dakkhin a person troubled with nightmare sleeps with a shoe under his pillow, and an exorcist frightens evil spirits by threatening to make them drink water from a tanner’s well. We shall see that this is one way of punishing and repelling the power of witches. The Pûna Kunbis believe that a drink of water from a tanner’s hand destroys the power of a witch. In the Panjâb, if a man sits on a currier’s stone, he gets boils.[84] The same principle probably accounts for much of the fear or contempt generally felt in India regarding shoe-beating as a form of punishment. At the same time it is said in Persia and Arabia that the dread of a flagellation with the slipper is based on the idea that while a flogging with the regular scourge involves little discredit, a beating with anything not originally intended for the purpose, such as a shoe or knotted cloth, is disgraceful.
The same feeling for the power of leather possibly explains the use as a seat of various kinds of skins, such as those of the tiger and antelope, by many kinds of ascetics, and in the old ritual the wife with her husband sat on the hide of a bull to promote the fertility of their union.