The Romance of the Harem

by Anna Harriette Leonowens

From the remotest times there has been a ceaseless march of tribes into this vast peninsula, from which there is no outlet. Pouring across the Indus or straggling down through the passes of the Himalaya, each wave of immigration pushed its predecessors farther into the country. Thus the Aryan nations followed in their turn, at the same time reacting powerfully on the creeds and usages of the primitive people. But various remains of the earlier and rude aboriginal tribes are still found here among the hilly regions and woody fastnesses of the peninsula. Many of them are quite distinct from one another, evidently belonging to different eras of an indefinitely remote and abysmal past.

The Rajpoots are the most remarkable of these aboriginal tribes, and they are described as a noble race, tall and athletic, with symmetric features, half-way between the Roman and Jewish types, large eyed, and with fine long hair falling in natural locks upon their shoulders; high-bred, though with the decline of their country under British rule the decline of their character has kept pace. Revolutions have done their work upon them, if, indeed, the word "revolution" may be applied to the insurrections and mutinies that have kept this portion of India in a state of petty warfare for the last three hundred years.

The comparatively treeless character of the hills where they dwell appears to indicate that, in former times, large spaces had been laid under cultivation, whereas at present they lead a savage life as freebooters and robbers.

Around these desolate hills and valleys cluster a variety of tribes and races, of diverse tongues and customs, creeds and religions,—worshippers of Mohammed and of the Buddha, followers of Brahma and of Indra, of Vishnu and Siva, of the many-breasted and teeming Dâvee, and the triple-headed and triple-bodied Dhupyâ. Over all these different peoples the Rajpoot, or warrior caste, has held for centuries an undisputed sway. Among all these tribes the "Meriâh" sacrifice prevails, as the only means of propitiating the earth-goddess.

The victims for these yearly sacrifices are furnished by a regular class of procurers, who either supply them to order or raise them on speculation. They are bought from their parents in hard famine times, or they are kidnapped on the plains. Devoted often in their childhood to the earth-goddess Dâvee, they are suffered to grow up as consecrated privileged beings, to marry, to hold lands and flocks and herds and other worldly goods, and are cherished and beloved by the community for whom they are willing to be offered up to serve as mediator and friend in the shadowy world beyond the grave for the short space of one year, when the insatiable earth-goddess is said to demand a fresh victim.

I ought not to omit to say here, as a faithful recorder of the facts that have reached me, that in spite of the tremendous doom that overshadows the victims consecrated to Dâvee's altar, they lead resigned and even joyous lives up to the last moment of their existence; and the saying is, that the soul of a god enters the martyr, and transfigures him into a divine, ineffable being, incapable of feeling any pain or regret at the moment of death.

For unnumbered centuries the vast hilly province of Orissa verging on Gondwana, and comprising all the eastern portion of the Vindhya chain, has been the scene of this revolting and inhuman custom; and from time immemorial thousands of men whom we in our enlightenment call "savage hordes" have offered themselves up for the good of their fellow-men. Surely an effluence from the Divine Soul must have passed over these strange mystic mediators, as they stood trembling upon Dâvee's altar, clutching the sharp knife in their uplifted hand, their faces turned towards the darkening earth, singing the supreme song, and uttering the supreme cry, "O Dâvee! do all thy acts to me. Spend all thy fury upon me. Spare my race from the hungry grave (earth). Drink of my blood, and be appeased." And as the echoes of this cry of triumph and of despair die away in the distance, the self-sacrificing victim plunges the bright steel into his own warm heart, bends forward to sprinkle with his life's blood the insatiable earth, repeating his song in whispers that grow fainter and fainter as he slowly draws out the fatal steel and falls dead upon her bare bosom.

The Rajpoots are still the chiefs. They levy a tax on the various tribes who inhabit these hilly regions, and who are, in great measure, dependent upon them, trained warriors from their childhood, for their protection. They are not distinct from their neighbors, so far as the ceremonials of religion are concerned. The number of marriages among them is, however, contracted by the exclusion of all but their own peculiar clan or caste. Marriage itself is an expensive thing, from the costly usages with which it is attended among them, while at the same time celibacy is disgraceful. An unmarried daughter is a reproach to her parents and to herself; therefore it has been an established custom with the Rajpoot to preserve the chastity of his daughter and the honor of his house by doing away with his female children a few hours after their birth. When a messenger from the Zennânâ announces to him the birth of a daughter, the Rajpoot will coolly roll up between his fingers a tiny ball of opium, to be conveyed to the mother, who thereupon, with many a bitter tear, rubs on her nipple the sleep-giving poison, and the babe drinks in death with its mother's milk.

Here again we find a striking anomaly in the Hindoo character. The parental instinct is as strong in the people of India as in any people of the world; and even where no parental tie exists, the tenderness with which strong, bearded men devote themselves to the care of young children is as touching as it is remarkable. A childless woman, too, is a miserable creature, a hissing and a reproach among men, and barrenness is only accounted for as a punishment for some grievous sin committed against the gods in a pre-existent state. Nevertheless, among the high-caste Rajpoot tribes female infanticide is universally practised; so that, in the district in which Rama was born, owing to its decline from the prosperity of former years, a high-born girl was rarely if ever heard of.