The extraordinary ingenuity here exhibited by the remarkable use which the artisan makes of his feet and toes, as well as of his hands, cannot fail to attract attention; and the display of his lathe and tools is equally curious.
SHÁNÁR MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
Two acts seem essential to the demon worship of the Shánárs of Tin-nevelly (a portion of the aborigines of India)—dancing and bloody sacrifices. They have no priest. The person who conducts the ceremony, which is undertaken from choice, is called the rotator of the demon. The head man of the village, or any other person, male or female, may officiate. The dress is grotesque, consisting of a sort of coat of various colours, a cap, and other vestments, arranged so as to strike the spectators with their comic appearance. In this service several musical instruments are used, but the most notable among them is one called a bow. It consists of a bow strung and ornamented with bells. This is placed on a brazen vessel of a globular form. The bow is struck with a plectrum, and the bass is produced by the application of an instrument to the brazen pot, another person keeping time by playing a pair of cymbals, as seen in the annexed cut.
The jarring, discordant, uproarious and cacophonous character of this musical accompaniment exceeds description, and when the parties are vieing with each other for pre-eminence, it is indeed the most horrid din that can be produced. At first the movements of the dancer may be slow, but as the music waxes louder and takes effect, he becomes gradually more excited, urging himself to phrenzy by striking himself violently, and applying his mouth to the neck of the decapitated sacrificial victim, he drinks its blood, and possibly a potation of ardent spirits. The afflatus thus acquired, its effects become visible in the frantic glare and the convulsive gesticulations of the possessed. This is greeted by the spectators with the loudest acclamations. The dancer is now deified or demonized, and he is consulted by the eager and delighted worshippers who do him homage. Each one puts his questions as his fancy or his needs may dictate. The possessed or demonized dancer, being more like a maniac than aught else, and subject to various contortions of body, utters his oracles with much indistinctness, rendering it necessary that some one initiated into these mysteries should interpret his wild and incoherent utterances. His ambiguous sayings and curious innuendos are so indefinite as to need interpretation.
SINGULAR LOCAL CUSTOMS.
In the department of the Hautes Alpes of France, in the commune of Guillaume-Perouse, at the village of Andrieux, where the inhabitants are deprived during one hundred days of the bright beams of the sun, there is a fête, called Le retour du soleil, on the 10th of February. At the dawn of day, four shepherds announce, to the sound of fifes and trumpets, the commencement of this joyous day. Every cottager having prepared an omelette, the eldest inhabitant of the village, to whom the title of Vénérable is given, leads the way to the square; here they form a chain and dance the ferandola round him: after the dance is concluded, he leads the way to a stone bridge at the entrance of the village, the shepherds playing upon their rural instruments the while. Every one having deposited his omelette on the stone coping, they repair to a neighbouring meadow, where the dancing re-commences and continues until the first rays of the sun gleam athwart the velvet turf: the dance then instantly ceases, each one hastens for his pancake, and holding it up, presents it as an offering to the god of day; the Vénérable holds his up with both his hands. As soon as the sun shines upon the village the procession returns to the square, where the party separates, and every one repairs to his own home, to eat his pancake with his family. This ceremony cannot fail to recal the heathen mythology to the reader, who must see in it the offerings made to Apollo; or, perhaps, it may be the remains of some Druidical superstition, as the Druids paid particular devotion to the sun; at any rate, it is a curious vestige of some religion long since gone by. In some of the communes of this department the dead are wrapped in a winding-sheet, but are not inclosed in a coffin. In the valleys of Queyras and of Grave, the dead are suspended in a barn during five months in the winter, until the earth be softened by the sun's rays, when the corpse is consigned to its native element. All funereal ceremonies are closed by eating and drinking. In some communes the people carry a flagon of wine to the churchyard; and on the return of the guests to the home of the deceased, it becomes a scene of bacchanalian revels, in which the groans and sighs of the mourners mingle with the songs and jests of the inebriated guests. At Argentiere, after the burial, the tables are set out round the churchyard; that of the curate and the mourning family over the grave itself. The dinner concluded, the nearest relation takes a glass; his example is followed by the rest, repeating with him, A la santé du pauvre mort.
SEVERITY OF RUSSIAN PUNISHMENTS.