they are about to be decapitated; their heads are placed on a log and their necks struck with the back of a sword. The fright drives some of them crazy.[1] When a Hindoo has killed or ill-treated an ape, a bird of prey of a certain kind, or a cobra capella, in the presence of the worshippers of Vishnu, he must expiate his offence by the pretended sacrifice and resurrection of a human being. An incision is made in the victim’s arm, the blood flows, he grows faint, falls, and feigns to die. Afterwards he is brought to life by being sprinkled with blood drawn from the thigh of a worshipper of Vishnu. The crowd of spectators is fully convinced of the reality of this simulated death and resurrection.[2] Sometimes the mock sacrifice is carried out, not on a living person but on an image. Thus an Indian law-book, the Calica Puran, prescribes that when the sacrifice of lions, tigers, or human beings is required, an image of a lion, tiger, or man shall be made with butter, paste, or barley meal, and sacrificed instead.[3] Some of the Gonds of India formerly offered human sacrifices; they now sacrifice straw-men instead.[4] Colonel Dalton was told that in some of their villages the Bhagats (Hindooised Oraons) “annually make an image of a man in wood, put clothes and ornaments on it, and present it before the altar of a Mahadeo. The person who officiates as priest on the occasion says: ‘O, Mahádeo, we sacrifice this man to you according to ancient customs. Give us rain in due season, and a
- ↑ Nieuwenhuisen en Rosenberg, “Verslag omtrent het eiland Nias,” in Ver handelingen van het Batav. Genootsch. van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, xxx. 43.
- ↑ J. A. Dubois, Moeurs, Institutions et Cérémonies des Peuples de l’Inde i. 151 sq.
- ↑ “The Rudhirádhyáyă, or sanguinary chapter,” translated from the Calica Puran by W. C. Blaquiere, in Asiatick Researches, v. 376 (8vo. ed. London, 1807).
- ↑ Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 281.
