There are other Indian customs based on the same principle.[78] Thus, in the Ambâla District a Brâhman named Nathu stated “that he had eaten food out of the hand of the Râja of Bilâspur, after his death, and that in consequence he had for the space of one year been placed on the throne at Bilâspur. At the end of the year he had been given presents, including a village, and had then been turned out of Bilâspur territory and forbidden apparently to return. Now he is an outcast among his co-religionists, as he has eaten food out of the dead man’s hand.” So at the funeral ceremonies of the late Rânî of Chamba, it is said that rice and ghi were placed in the hands of the corpse, which a Brâhman consumed on payment of a fee. The custom has given rise to a class of outcast Brâhmans in the Hill States about Kângra. In another account of the funeral rites of the Rânî of Chamba, it is added that after the feeding of the Brâhman, as already described, “a stranger, who had been caught beyond Chamba territory, was given the costly wrappings round the corpse, a new bed and a change of raiment, and then told to depart, and never to show his face in Chamba again.” At the death of a respectable Hindu the clothes and other belongings of the dead man are, in the same way, given to the Mahâbrâhman or funeral priest. This seems to be partly based on the principle that he, by using these articles, passes them on for the use of the deceased in the land of death; but the detestation and contempt felt for this class of priest may be, to some extent, based on the idea that by the use of these articles he takes upon his head the sins of the dead man.[79]
Again, writing of the customs prevailing among the Râjput tribes of Oudh which practise female infanticide, Gen. Sleeman writes:[80]—“The infant is destroyed in the room where it was born, and there buried. The room is then plastered over with cow-dung, and on the thirteenth day after, the village or family priest must cook and eat his food in this room. He is provided with wood, ghi, barley, rice, and sesamum. He boils the rice, barley, and sesamum in a brass vessel, throws the ghi over them when they are dressed, and eats the whole. This is considered as a Homa or burnt offering, and by eating it in that place, the priest is supposed to take the whole Hatya or sin upon himself, and to cleanse the family from it.”
So, in Central India the Gonds in November assemble at the shrine of Gansyâm Deo to worship him. Sacrifices of fowls and spirits, or a pig, occasionally, according to the size of the village, are offered, and Gansyâm Deo is said to descend on the head of one of the worshippers, who is suddenly seized with a kind of fit, and after staggering about for a while, rushes off into the wildest jungles, where the popular theory is that, if not pursued and brought back, he would inevitably die of starvation, and become a raving lunatic. As it is, after being brought back by one or two men, he does not recover his senses for one or two days. The idea is that one man is thus singled out as a scapegoat for the sins of the rest of the village.
In the final stage we find the scape animal merging into a regular expiatory sacrifice. Other examples will be given in another connection of the curious customs, like that of the Irish and Manxland rites of hunting the wren, which are almost certainly based on the principle of a sacrifice. Here it may be noted that at one of their festivals, the Bhûmij used to drive two male buffaloes into a small enclosure, while the Râja and his suite used to witness the proceedings. They first discharged arrows at the animals, and the tormented and enraged beasts fell to and gored each other, while arrow after arrow was discharged. When the animals were past doing very much mischief, the people rushed in and hacked them to pieces with axes. This custom is now discontinued.[81]
Similarly in the Hills, at the Nand Ashtamî, or feast in honour of Nanda, the foster father of Krishna, a buffalo is specially fed with sweetmeats, and, after being decked with a garland round the neck, is worshipped. The headman of the village then lays a sword across its neck and the beast is let loose, when all proceed to chase it, pelt it with stones, and hack it with knives until it dies. It is curious that this savage rite is carried out in connection with the worship of the Krishna Cultus, in which blood sacrifice finds no place.[82]
In the same part of the country the same rite is performed after a death, on the analogy of the other instances, which have been already quoted. When a man dies, his relations assemble at the end of the year in which the death occurred, and the nearest male relative dances naked (another instance of the nudity charm, to which reference has been already made) with a drawn sword in his hand, to the music of a drum, in which he is assisted by others for a whole day and night. The following day a buffalo is brought and made intoxicated with Bhang or Indian hemp, and spirits, and beaten to death with sticks, stones and weapons.
So, the Hill Bhotiyas have a feast in honour of the village god, and towards evening they take a dog, make him drunk with spirits and hemp, and kill him with sticks and stones, in the belief that no disease or misfortune will visit the village during the year.[83] At the periodical feast in honour of the mountain goddess of the Himâlaya, Nandâ Devî, it is said that a four-horned goat is invariably born and accompanies the pilgrims. When unloosed on the mountain, the sacred goat suddenly disappears and as suddenly reappears without its head, and then furnishes food for the party. The head is supposed to be consumed by the goddess herself, who by accepting it with its load of sin, washes away the transgressions of her votaries.
[1] “Gazetteer,” i. 175.
[2] “Bombay Gazetteer,” xvii. 200; xxiii. 12; Campbell, “Notes,” 12 sqq.