"Reek, Bede. If a wife thus burn with her husband, it is not suicide; and her relations shall observe three days' uncleanness for her; after which her Shraddha [[77]] must he properly performed.--If she cannot come to the place, or does not receive an account of her husband's death, she shall wait the appointed ten days of uncleanness, [[78]] and may afterwards die in a separate fire.--If she die in a separate fire, three days' uncleanness will be observed; after which the Pinda must be performed.--After the uncleanness on account of the husband is over, the Shraddha must be performed according to the commandment.--Three days after his death, the Dospinda [[79]] must be made, and after ten days the regular Shraddha.
"Goutam. Brahmmanee can only die with her husband, on which account she cannot burn in another fire. When a woman dies with her husband, the eldest son, or nearest relation, shall set fire to the pile; whose office also it is to perform the Dospinda, and all the obsequies. He who kindles the fire shall perform the Dospinda: [[80]] but her own son, or nearest relations, must perform the Shraddha.--If a woman burn separately, only three days' uncleanness will be observed for her; but if in the same fire ten days.
"Asouch Shunkar. If another person die before the last day of uncleanness for a death or birth, then the uncleanness on account of the second person's death will be included in the first, and the time not lengthened out.
"Bishnoo Pooran. If the husband die in war, only present uncleanness, or till bathing, will be observed for him: if, therefore, the wife burn with him only one night's uncleanness will be observed for her; but, if in a separate fire, three days; and in that case the husband's Pinda will be at the end of three days.--If the husband and wife burn in one fire, they will obtain separate offerings of the Shraddha.--If a woman die with her husband voluntarily, the offerings to her, and all her obsequies will be equal to his.--If they die within a Tithee, or lunar day, the offerings will be made to both at the same time.--If the person be Potect, or sinful; that is, has killed a Brahmman, or drinks spirituous liquors, or has committed some sin in his former life, on account of which he is afflicted with elephantiasis, consumption, leprosy, &c. [[81]] all will be blotted out by his wife burning with him, after proper atonement has been made. [[82]]--A woman with a young child, or being pregnant, cannot burn with her husband.--If there be a proper person to educate the infant, she may be permitted to burn.--If any woman ascend the pile, and should afterward decline to burn, through love of life or earthly things, she shall perform the penance Prazapatya, and will then be free from sin.'" [[83]]
The following statement is taken from the more recent communication of another of the Baptist missionaries to India:--
"Jan. 9, 1807. A person informing us that a woman was about to be burnt with the corpse of her husband near our house, I, with several of our brethren, hastened to the place; but, before we could arrive, the pile was in flames. It was a horrible sight. The most shocking indifference and levity appeared among those who were present: I never saw anything more brutal than their behaviour. The dreadful scene had not the least appearance of a religious ceremony, It resembled an abandoned rabble of boys in England, collected for the purpose of worrying to death a cat or a dog. A bamboo, perhaps twenty feet long, had been fastened at one end to a stake driven in the ground, and held down over the fire by men at the other. Such were the confusion, the levity, the bursts of brutal laughter, while the poor woman was burning alive before their eyes, that it seemed as if every spark of humanity was extinguished by this cruel superstition. That which added to the cruelty was, the smallness of the fire. It did not consist of so much wood as we consume in dressing a dinner: no, not this fire that was to consume the living and the dead! I saw the legs of the poor creature hanging out of the fire, while her body was in flames. After a while they took a bamboo, ten or twelve feet long, and stirred it, pushing and beating the half-consumed corpse, as you would repair a fire of green wood, by throwing the unconsumed pieces into the middle. Perceiving the legs hanging out, they beat them with the bamboo for some time, in order to break the ligatures which fastened them at the knees; (for they would not have come near to touch them for the world.) At length, they succeeded in binding them upwards into the fire; the skin and muscles giving way, and discovering the knee-sockets bare, with the balls of the leg bones; a sight this, which, I need not say, made me thrill with horror; especially when I recollected that this hopeless victim of superstition was alive but a few minutes before. To have seen savage wolves thus tearing a human body limb from limb, would have been shocking; but to see relations and neighbours do this to one with whom they had familiarly conversed not an hour before, and to do it with an air of levity, was almost too much for me to bear! Turning to the Brahmman who was the chief actor in this horrid tragedy, a young fellow of about twenty-two, and one of the most hardened that ever I accosted, I told him that the system which allowed of these cruelties, could no more proceed from God than darkness from the sun; and warned him, that he must appear at the judgment-seat of God, to answer for this murder. He, with a grin, full of savage contempt, told me that 'he gloried in it, and felt the highest pleasure in performing the deed.' I replied, 'that his pleasure might be less than that of his Master; but seeing it was in vain to reason with him, I turned to the people, and expostulated with them. One of them answered, that 'the woman had burnt herself of her own free choice, and that she went to the pile as a matter of pleasure.'--'Why, then, did you confine her down with that large bamboo?'--'If we had not, she would have run away'--'What, run away from pleasure!' I then addressed the poor lad, who had been thus induced to set fire to his mother. He appeared about nineteen. 'You have murdered your mother! your sin is great. The sin of the Brahmman, who urged you to it, is greater; but yours is very great.'--'What could I do? It is the custom.'--'True, but this custom is not of God; but proceedeth from the devil, who wishes to destroy mankind. How will you bear the reflection that you have murdered your only surviving parent?' He seemed to feel what was said to him; but, just at this instant, that hardened wretch, the Brahmman, rushed in, and drew him away, while the tears were standing in his eyes. After reasoning with some others, and telling them of the Saviour of the world, I returned home with a mind full of horror and disgust.
"You expect, perhaps, to hear that this unhappy victim was the wife of some Brahmman of high cast. She was the wife of a barber who dwelt at Serampore, and had died that morning, leaving the son I have mentioned, and a daughter about eleven years of age. Thus has this infernal superstition aggravated the common miseries of life, and left these children stripped of both their parents in one day! Nor is this an uncommon case. It often happens to children far more helpless than these; sometimes to children possessed of property, which is then left, as well as themselves, to the mercy of those who have decoyed their mother to their father's funeral pile." [[84]]
CEYLON. "Idolatrous procession. Each carriage has four wheels of solid wood, and requires two hundred men to drag it. When they are dragged along the streets, on occasions of great solemnity, women, in the phrensy of false devotion, throw themselves down before the wheels, and are crushed to death by their tremendous weight; the same superstitious madness preventing the ignorant crowd from making any attempt to save them." [[85]]
SUMATRA. "The modes of marriage," says Mr. Marsden, "according to the original institutions of these people, are by jujur, by arnbel anak, or by Semando. The jujur is a certain sum of money, given by one man to another, as a consideration for the person of his daughter, whose situation, in this case, differs not much from that of a slave to the man she marries, and to his family; his absolute property in her depends, however, upon some nice circumstances. Besides the botang jupu, (or main sum,) there are certain appendages, or branches, one of which, the tali kulo, or five dollars, is usually, from motives of delicacy or friendship, left unpaid; and so long as that is the case, a relationship is understood to subsist between the two families, and the parents of the woman have a right to interfere on occasions of ill treatment; the husband is also liable to be fined for wounding her: with other limitations of absolute right. When that sum is finally paid, which seldom happens but in cases of violent quarrel, the tali kulo, (tie of relationship,) is said to be putus, (broken,) and the woman becomes to all intents the slave of her lord. She has then no title to claim a divorce in any predicament; and he may sell her, making only the first offer to her relations."
Speaking of another part of the country, (Batta,) he says, "the men are allowed to marry as many wives as they please or can afford, and to have half a dozen is not uncommon. The condition of the women appears to be no other than that of slaves, the husbands having the power of selling their wives and children." [[86]]