“Because, sahib, the Rajah will grant no audience until after the funeral, and that cannot, according to custom, take place in less than one month and seven days.”
“Whew!” whistled Martin; “a pretty time to be cooped up here! How shall we pass our time?”
“Take to the woods or the river, and employ ourselves with our guns,” I suggested; and so we did, day by day, but for all that the time hung heavily upon our hands. As for Kati, Prabu sent him back to the prahu; for, for some reason unknown to us, he had no great faith in the honesty of the young chief Mahomed.
A few mornings after this, as my brother and I, accompanied by Prabu, were passing through the principal street on our way to the jungle, we encountered a procession that somewhat startled us—at least Martin and me. It consisted of twenty litters, in each of which sat a young woman attired in white, and accompanied by an aged attendant of the same sex. The appearance of the two was contrasted; for whereas the girls looked as joyful as if going to a wedding, the old ladies looked as dismal as if they were attending a funeral. There was also a band of musicians in the rear, playing a very lively air.
“Strange,” I remarked, “that such doings should be permitted at a time of public mourning!”
“Sahib, these women are the chief mourners for the late Queen: they were her slaves, devoted to her through life—they will accompany her in death. Yesterday, the whole of the Queen’s women sought the Rajah, and earnestly, and in tears, besought his permission to accompany their mistress to the next world: from among the applicants his Highness selected these.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed, with a shudder; “I had forgotten they are Hindoos.”
Of course my reader has heard of suttee or widow-burning, so long practiced in our Indian Empire, but now, to a great extent, suppressed by the English Government. Well, that inhuman rite has never prevailed on the continent of India to the same extent as among the islanders, amongst whom, indeed, it is supposed to have had its origin.
When a prince or princess of the royal family dies, their women or slaves walk around the body, uttering cries and frightful howlings, and all begging to die for their master or mistress. The Rajah, on the following day, designates, one by one, those of whom he makes choice for the privilege, as had been the case with the twenty poor creatures in that procession. From that moment to the last of their lives, they are daily conducted, at an early hour, without the town, to perform their devotions, having their feet wrapped in white linen; for it is no more permitted to them to touch the bare earth, because they are considered as consecrated. The old women who accompany them are for the purpose of fanning the flame of their enthusiasm, and to keep them from wavering as the hour of death draws nigh. The night before the day of execution these poor creatures are made to pass in continual dancing and rejoicing, without being permitted to close an eye. All pains are taken to give them whatever tends to the gratification of their senses, and from the quantity of wine which they take, few objects are capable of terrifying their imaginations. Besides, their minds are inflamed by the promises of their priests, and their mistaken notions of the joys of another state of existence. How strongly this reminds one of the Aztec festival, in honor of Tezcatlipoca (the Mexican Jupiter), only in the latter the ghastly mockery of state and happiness was kept up by the victim for twelve months before he was butchered upon the sacrificial stone, to be afterwards served up, with the rarest of condiments, at the tables of the priests and nobles!
But if, day after day, for the prescribed period of mourning, we were shocked at this procession, now that we knew its intent, how shall I describe our feelings at witnessing the sacrifices! But my readers shall judge for themselves. About noon, on the day appointed for the funeral, the procession started from the palace. First came the twenty doomed girls, in the order according to their rank in the deceased’s household, each in an elegantly-constructed badi or litter, bedecked with flowers, and followed by an aged woman, who would, from time to time, endeavor to fan the perhaps now dying flames of enthusiasm;—then, priests, bearing roasted viands, rice, and betelnut, as offerings to the gods, followed by musicians, playing triumphant tunes. So they moved onward, until they arrived at the place of sacrifice. Here there were twenty scaffolds, in the form of troughs, each raised upon four poles, and edged in on two sides with planks. The victims having arrived, they were thrice carried round a circle. After this, the sufferers were placed in troughs, which was the signal for the approach of a man and a woman to each: the former, snatching the flowers which bedecked the girls, held them above their heads with pieces of the offerings to the gods, which the women posted behind them snatched from their hands and threw upon the ground. Then a priest let loose a pigeon, as an emblem that their victims’ souls were on the point of taking their flight to the mansions of the blessed! At this moment there was a solemn and mournful silence; but amongst the victims, not a lip quivered, not a muscle moved; but you could see the bosoms heaving beneath the white robes, and, I fancied, could hear the beating of their hearts. There were wet eyes, and sobs, too; but it was from their relations in the crowd, whose natural affections could not be entirely subdued, even by these dire superstitions.