It is equally certain that rites of undoubted Dravidian origin are to be observed among the Cham. The common denominator of all the religions of India is the worship of divinities personifying the earth or the elements, generally in the shape of a woman, and almost always considered malevolent.
Horrible sacrifices are offered to appease them, and the religious ceremonies usually terminate in the most abandoned orgies. The presiding priest, or "Devil Dancer," after a series of frantic contortions, falls to the ground in a hypnotic trance, during which the incoherent expressions that fall from his lips are greedily noted and repeated by the Faithful, who regard them as the words of Divinity itself.
For a last example there are certain fêtes, such as the "Durgapuja" in Bengal, marked by buffoonery and pantomime, in which the worshippers conclude the ceremonies by carrying a statue of the goddess in procession to the river banks, and casting it into the waters to the strains of an ear-shattering orchestra.
CHAPTER V
RITES AND SUPERSTITIONS (continued)
Burial rites—Philology—Legends and fables.
The exorcisms of the "Padjao" directed towards expelling disease from the bodies of the Cham are too similar to those of the Moï sorceress to merit description, which would be little more than repetition.
On the other hand, the burial rites of the Kaphir Cham are highly characteristic.
Children who die before the age of puberty, and therefore not initiated into the full rights and mysteries of manhood, are buried in the earth, while adults of both sexes are cremated. The reason for this distinction is not far to seek. The adults are regarded as a class set apart with its own complex of funeral rites and observances. Further, those who die while still of tender years die in innocence and need no such purification from their sins as is implied in the practice of submitting the bodies of their elders to the scourge of fire.
After death the spirits of the little ones are supposed to dwell in the bodies of rats, and their memory is perpetuated from time to time by ceremonies in which the head of the family, clad in a new robe for the occasions, makes offerings, waves his hands in the air to imitate the movements of a bird, performs certain mystical passes, and puts a red flower in a bronze vase.