Tell her, brothers, that I am married,
That I have taken the tombstone for a mother-in-law, Black Earth for a wife,
And the fine grass blades all for brothers and sisters-in-law.”
The maleficent deities are also responsible for floods. When therefore, heavy floods threatened a village or a city in Gujarat, the king or the headman used to go in procession to propitiate the river with flowers, cocoanuts, and other offerings, so that the floods should subside. Similarly, in the Punjab, when a village is in danger of being flooded, the headman makes an offering of a cocoanut and a rupee to the flood-demon. The cocoanut represents the head of a human being and is believed to be acceptable to the water-demon in lieu of a human victim. The headman stands in the water and holds the offering in his hand. When the flood rises high enough to wash the offering from his hand, it is understood that the waters will abate. Some people throw seven handfuls of boiled wheat and sugar into the stream and distribute the remainder among the persons present. Some take a male buffalo, a horse, or a ram, and after boring the right ear of the victim, throw it into the water. If the victim is a horse, it is saddled before it is offered.
In Bengal goats are sacrificed to propitiate the river-goddess in her malignant form when she devastates the land with floods or engulfs the swimmers. The goats are often thrown alive into the water and are taken out by men of the boatman caste, who eat their flesh. Many ascetics perform a special penance in her honour, which consists in spending every night in the month of January, when the cold is intense, seated on a small platform erected over the river and engaged in such prayer and meditation as their sufferings from the cold will allow.[47] Crooke says that when the town and temples at Hardwar were in imminent danger during the Gohna flood, the Brahmans poured vessels of milk, rice and flowers into the waters of Mother Ganges and prayed to her to spare them. Similarly, a story is related in the Folklore Notes of Gujarat of the occurrence of heavy floods in a village in the Jalalpur taluka, when a certain lady placed an earthen vessel (ordinarily used for curdling milk), containing ghee, afloat on the floods, whereupon the waters were at once seen to recede.
A few years ago the river Musi overflowed and caused terrible destruction. His Highness the Nizam thereupon went to the river, took off his turban, and threw it into the water in the hope that such submissiveness of a prince might appease the wrath of the river.[48]
Ocean-Worship.
Narali Purnima or Cocoanut Day.