This last term suggests a new series of ideas. The Bodo religious ordinances are apparently very simple; so that they form a remarkable contrast with the numerous details of Hinduism. The birth, the weaning, and the naming of children are all unattended with ceremonies requiring the presence of a priest. At funerals and marriages, however, the priest presides. This he does, not so much as a minister to the essential ceremony, as for the sake of the feast that accompanies it. No Bodo or Dhimál will touch flesh which has not been offered to the gods: and this offering a priest must make. Such being the case, notwithstanding the statement of Mr. Hodgson, who describes in somewhat flattering terms the negative merits of the simple Bodo creed, and who especially affirms that the priesthood is no hereditary office, I cannot but suspect that the influence of the spiritual power is greater than he admits. If not, the Bodo must have but few meals of meat.
Marriage is a contract rather than a rite. Polygamy or concubinage is rare: the adoption of children common. All the sons inherit equally; daughters not at all. A Bodo can only marry to one of his own people. Divorce, though practicable and easy, is rare; the wife and daughter have their due influence. No infanticide, no suttí. Children are named as soon as the mother comes abroad, which is generally four or five days after her confinement. The idea that the delivery involves a temporal impurity is recognised; so that all births (and deaths also) necessitate a temporary segregation and certain purificatory forms. The one, however, is short, and the other simple. The infant "is named immediately after birth, or as soon as the mother comes abroad, which is always four or five days after delivery. There are no family names, or names derived from the gods. Most Bodo and Dhimáls bear meaningless designations, or any passing event of the moment may suggest a significant term: thus a Bhótia chief arrives at the village, and the child is called Jinkhap; or a hill peasant arrives, and it is named Góngar, after the titular or general designation of the Bhótias. Children are not weaned so long as their mother can suckle them, which is always from two to three years—sometimes more—and two children, the last and penultimate, are occasionally seen at the breast together. The delayed period of weaning will account in part for the limited fecundity of the women. When a Bodo or Dhimál comes of age, the event is not solemnized by any rite or social usage whatever. Marriage takes place at maturity, the male being usually from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and the female, from fifteen to twenty. Courtship is not sanctioned: the parents or friends negotiate the wedlock."
In this the commercial element is predominant. A price—Jan—must be paid by the bridegroom elect for the intended bride. If the former have "no means of discharging this sum, he must go to the house of his father-in-law elect and there literally earn his wife by the sweat of his brow, labouring, more Judaico, upon mere diet for a term of years, varying from two as an average to five and even seven as the extreme period. This custom is named Gabóï by the Bodo—Ghárjyá by the Dhimáls."
When the preliminaries have been arranged, the bridegroom proceeds to the house of the bride, in procession with his friends. Two females attend him. The business of these is "to put red lead or oil on the bride elect's head, when the procession has reached her home. There a refection is prepared, after partaking of which, the procession returns, conducting the bride elect to the house of the groom's parents. So far the same rite is common to the Bodo and Dhimál—the rest is peculiar to each. Among the Dhimáls, the Déóshi now proceeds to propitiate the gods by offerings. Dáta and Bídata who preside over wedlock are invoked, and betel-leaf and red lead are presented to them. The bride and groom elect are next placed side by side, and each furnished with five pauns, with which they are required to feed each other, while the parents of the groom cover them with a sheet, upon which the Déóshi, by sprinkling holy water sanctifies and completes the nuptials. Among the Bodo the bride elect is anointed at her own home with oil; the elders or the Déóshi perform the sacred part of the ceremony, which consists in the sacrifice of a cock and a hen, in the respective names of the groom and bride, to the sun: and next, the groom, rising, makes salutation to the bride's parents, and the bride, similarly, attests her future duty of reverence and obedience towards her husband's parents; when the nuptials are complete. A feast follows both with Bodo and Dhimáls, but is less costly among the former than among the latter—as is said, because the higher price paid for his wife by the Bodo incapacitates him for giving so costly an entertainment. The marriage feast of the Dhimáls is alleged to cost thirty or forty rupees sometimes, the festivities being prolonged through two and even three days; whereas four to six—rarely ten rupees suffice for the nuptial banquet of a Bodo.
"The Bodo and Dhimáls both alike bury the dead, immediately after decease, with simple but decent reverence, though no fixed burial ground nor artificial tomb is in use to mark the last resting place of those most dear in life, because the migratory habits of the people would render such usages nugatory. The family and friends form a funeral procession, which bears the dead in silence to the grave. The body being interred, a few stones are piled loosely upon the grave to prevent disturbance by jackals and ratels, rather than to mark the spot, and some food and drink are laid upon the grave; when the ceremony is suspended, and the party disperses. Friends are purified by mere ablution in the next stream and at once resume their usual cares. The family are unclean for three days, after which, besides bathing and shaving, they need to be sprinkled with holy water by their elders or priest. They are then restored to purity and forthwith proceed to make preparations for a funeral banquet, by the sacrifice of a hog to Mainou or Timáng, of a cock to Báthó or Pochima, according to the nation. When the feast has been got ready and the friends are assembled, before sitting down they all repair, once again, to the grave, when the nearest of kin to the deceased, taking an individual's usual portion of food and drink, solemnly presents them to the dead with these words, 'Take and eat: heretofore you have eaten and drunk with us; you can do so no more; you were one of us; you can be so no longer: we come no more to you: come you not to us.' And thereupon the whole party break and cast on the grave a bracelet of thread priorly attached, to this end, to the wrist of each of them. Next the party proceed to the river and bathe, and having thus lustrated themselves, they repair to the banquet, and eat, drink, and make merry as though they were never to die! A funeral costs the Dhimáls from four to eight rupees—something more to the Bodo, who practise more formality on the occasion, and to whom is peculiar the singular leave-taking of the dead just described."
The details relating to the priesthood, and to the festivals of the Bodo tribes, will best indicate the nature of their religion. The list of the Bodo gods is very nearly the list of the Bodo rivers. Báthó, however, the chief god, is no river but a plant; one of the Euphorbeace. Mainon is Báthó's wife. All diseases are referred to preternatural influence. Oaths and ordeals are very general.
Rites and ceremonies.—The rites of the Bodo and Dhimál religions are entirely similar and "consist of offerings, sacrifices, and prayers. The prayers are few and simple, when stript of their mummery; and necessarily so, being committed solely to the memories of a non-hereditary and very trivially instructed and mutable priesthood. They consist of invocations of protection for the people and their crops and domestic animals; of deprecations of wrath when sickness, murrain, drought, blight, or the ravages of wild animals, prevail; and thanksgivings when the crops are safely housed, or recent troubles are passed. The offerings consist of milk, honey, parched rice, eggs, flowers, fruits, and red lead or cochineal: the sacrifices of hogs, goats, fowls, ducks, and pigeons—most commonly hogs and fowls. Sacrifices are deemed more worthy than offerings, so that all the higher deities, without reference to their supposed benevolence or malevolence of nature, receive sacrifices—all the lesser deities, offerings only. Libations of fermented liquor always accompany sacrifice—because, to confess the whole truth, sacrifice and feast are commutable words, and feasts need to be crowned by copious potations! Malevolence appears to be attributed to very few of the gods, though of course all will resent neglect; but, in general, their natures are deemed benevolent; and hence the absence of all savage or cruel rites. All diseases, however, are ascribed to supernatural agency. The sick man is supposed to be possessed by one of the deities, who racks him with pains, as a punishment for impiety or neglect of the god in question. Hence, not the mediciner, but the exorcist is summoned to the sick man's aid. The exorcist is called, both by the Bodo and Dhimáls, Ojhá, and he operates as follows. Thirteen leaves, each with a few grains of rice upon it, are placed by the exorcist in a segment of a circle before him to represent the deities. The Ojhá, squatting on his hams before the leaves causes a pendulum attached to his thumb by a string to vibrate before them, repeating invocations the while. The god who has possessed the sick man, is indicated by the exclusive vibration of the pendulum towards his representative leaf, which is then taken apart, and the god in question is asked, what sacrifice he requires? a buffalo, a hog, a fowl, or a duck to spare the sufferer. He answers (the Ojhá best knows how!) a hog; and it is forthwith vowed by the sick man and promised by the exorcist, but only paid when the former has recovered. On recovery the animal is sacrificed, and its blood offered to the offended deity. I witnessed the ceremony myself among the Dhimáls, on which occasion the thirteen deities invoked were Pochima or Waráng, Timai or Béráng, Lákhim, Konoksiri, Ménchi, Chímá, Danto, Chádúng, Aphóï, Biphóï, Andhéman (Aphún), Tátopátia (Báphún), and Shúti. A Bodo exorcist would proceed precisely in the same manner, the only difference in the ceremony being the invocation of the Bodo gods instead of the Dhimál ones.
"The great festivals of the year are three or four. The first is held in December-January, when the cotton crop is ready. It is called Shúrkhar by the Bodo, Haréjata by the Dhimáls. The second is held in February-March. It is named Wágalénó by the Bodo, who alone observe it. The Bodo name for the third, which is celebrated in July-August, when the rice comes into ear, is Phúlthépno. The Dhimáls call it Gávi púja. The fourth great festival is held in October, and is named Ai húnó by the Bodo—Pochima páká by the Dhimáls. The first three of these festivals are consecrated to the elemental gods and to the interests of agriculture. They are celebrated abroad, not at home (generally on the banks of a river), whence attendance on them is called Hagrou húdong or madai húdong, "going forth to worship" in contradistinction to the style of the fourth great festival, which is devoted to the household gods and is celebrated at home. The Wágalénó, or bamboo festival of the Bodo, I witnessed in the spring of this year, and will describe it as a sample of the whole. Proceeding from Siligori to Pankhabárí with Dr. Campbell, we came upon a party of Bodo in the bed of the river, within the Saul forest, or rather, were drawn off the road by the noise they made. It was a sort of chorus of a few syllables, solemnly and musically incanted, which, on reaching the spot was found to be uttered by thirteen Bodo men, who were drawn up in a circle facing inwards, and each carrying a lofty bamboo pole decked with several tiers of wearing apparel and crowned with a Chour or yak's tail. Within the circle were three men, one of whom with an instrument like this
