the ashes are then scattered over the ground to fertilise it. The rest of the body is eaten.[1]
The Gonds of India, a Dravidian race, kidnapped Brahman boys, and kept them as victims to be sacrificed on various occasions. At sowing and reaping, after a triumphal procession, one of the lads was slain by being punctured with a poisoned arrow. His blood was then sprinkled over the ploughed field or the ripe crop, and his flesh was devoured.[2]
But the best known case of human sacrifices, systematically offered to ensure good crops, is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs, another Dravidian race in Bengal. Our knowledge of them is derived from the accounts written by British officers who, forty or fifty years ago, were engaged in putting them down.[3] The sacrifices were offered to the Earth Goddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, and were believed to ensure good crops and immunity from all disease and accidents. In particular, they were considered necessary in the cultivation of turmeric, the Khonds arguing that the turmeric could not have a deep red colour without the shedding of blood.[4] The victim or Meriah was acceptable to the goddess only if he had been purchased, or had been born a victim—that is, the son of a victim father—or had been devoted as a child by his father or guardian. Khonds in distress often sold their children for victims, “considering the beatification of their souls certain, and their death, for the benefit of mankind, the most honourable possible.”
- ↑ Arbousset et Daumas, Voyage d’exploration au Nord-est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Esperance. p.117 sq.
- ↑ Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. No. 721.
- ↑ Major S. C. Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 113 sq.; Major-General John Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khondistan, pp. 52-58, etc.
- ↑ J. Campbell, op. cit. p. 56.
