We may likewise class among the immovables those fakirs who cause themselves to be interred up to the neck, and who remain thus with their head sticking out of the ground either during the entire time the fair or fete lasts or for months and years.
Anchylotic Fakirs.--The number of fakirs who continue to hold one or both arms outstretched is very large in India. The following description of one of them is given by a traveler: "He was a goussain--a religious mendicant--who had dishevelled hair and beard, and horrible tattooings upon his face, and, what was most hideous, was his left arm, which, withered and anchylosed, stuck up perpendicularly from the shoulder. His closed hand, surrounded by straps, had been traversed by the nails, which, continuing to grow, had bent like claws on the other side. Finally, the hollow of this hand, which was filled with earth, served as a pot for a small sacred myrtle."
Other fakirs hold their two arms above their head, the hands crossed, and remain perpetually in such a position. Others again have one or both arms extended. Some hang by their feet from the limb of a tree by means of a cord, and remain head downward for days at a time, with their face uncongested and their voice clear, counting their beads and mumbling prayers.
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of fakirs is the faculty that certain of them possess of remaining entirely buried in vaults and boxes, and inclosed in bags, etc., for weeks and months, and, although there is a certain deceit as regards the length of their absolute abstinence, it nevertheless seems to be a demonstrated fact that, after undergoing a peculiar treatment, they became plunged into a sort of lethargy that allows them to remain for several days or weeks without taking food. Certain fakirs that have been interred under such conditions have, it appears, passed ten months or a year in their grave.
Tortured Fakirs.--Fakirs that submit themselves to tortures are very numerous. Some of them perform exercises analogous to those of the Aissaoua. Mr. Rousselet, in his voyage to the Indies, had an opportunity of seeing some of these at Bhopal, and the following is the picturesque description that he gives of them: "I remarked some groups of religious mendicants of a frightfully sinister character. They were Jogins, who, stark naked and with dishevelled hair, were walking about, shouting, and dancing a sort of weird dance. In the midst of their contortions they brandished long, sharp poniards, of a special form, provided with steel chains. From time to time, one of these hallucinated creatures would drive the poniard into his body (principally into the sides of his chest), into his arms, and into his legs, and would only desist when, in order to calm his apparent fury, the idlers who were surrounding him threw a sufficient number of pennies to him."
At the time of the feast of the Juggernaut one sees, or rather one did see before the English somewhat humanized this ceremony, certain fakirs suspended by their flesh from iron hooks placed along the sides of the god's car. Others had their priests insert under their shoulder blades two hooks, that were afterward fixed to a long pole capable of pivoting upon a post. The fakirs were thus raised about thirty feet above ground, and while being made to spin around very rapidly, smilingly threw flowers to the faithful. Others, again, rolled over mattresses garnished with nails, lance-points, poniards, and sabers, and naturally got up bathed in blood. A large number cause 120 gashes (the sacred number) to be made in their back and breast in honor of their god. Some pierce their tongue with a long and narrow poniard, and remain thus exposed to the admiration of the faithful. Finally, many of them are content to pass points of iron or rods made of reed through folds in their skin. It will be seen from this that fakirs are ingenious in their modes of exciting the compassion and charity of the faithful.
Elsewhere, among a large number of savage tribes and half-civilized peoples, we find aspirants to the priesthood of the fetiches undergoing, under the direction of the members of the religious caste that they desired to enter, ordeals that are extremely painful. Now, it has been remarked for a long time that, among the neophytes, although all are prepared by the same hands, some undergo these ordeals without manifesting any suffering, while others cannot stand the pain, and so run away with fright. It has been concluded from this that the object of such ordeals is to permit the caste to make a selection from among their recruits, and that, too, by means of anesthetics administered to the chosen neophytes.
In France, during the last two centuries, when torturing the accused was in vogue, some individuals were found to be insensible to the most fearful tortures, and some even, who were plunged into a species of somnolence or stupefaction, slept in the hands of the executioner.
What are the processes that permit of such results being reached? Evidently, we cannot know them all. A certain number are caste, sect, or family secrets. Many are known, however, at least in a general way. The processes naturally vary, according to the object to be attained. Some seem to consist only in an effort of the will. Thus, those fakirs who remain immovable have no need of any special preparation to reach such a result, and the same is the case with those who are interred up to the neck, the will alone sufficing. Fakirs probably pass through the same phases that invalids do who are forced to keep perfectly quiet through a fracture or dislocation. During the first days the organism revolts against such inaction, the constraint is great, the muscles contract by starts, and then the patient gets used to it; the constraint becomes less and less, the revolt of the muscles becomes less frequent, and the patient becomes reconciled to his immobility. It is probable that after passing several months or years in a state of immobility fakirs no longer experience any desire to change their position, and even did they so desire, it would be impossible owing to the atrophy of their muscles and the anchylosis of their joints.
Those fakirs who remain with one or several limbs immovable and in an abnormal position have to undergo a sort of preparation, a special treatment; they have to enter and remain two or three mouths in a sort of cage or frame of bamboo, the object of which is to keep the limb that is to be immobilized in the position that it is to preserve. This treatment, which is identical with the one employed by surgeons for curing affections of the joints, has the effect of soldering or anchylosing the articulation. When such a result is reached, the fakir remains, in spite of himself and without fatigue, with outstretched arms, and, in order to cause them to drop, he would have to undergo a surgical operation.