stones, especially curious ones and such as were like men or animals, objects of veneration, but we learn that they were venerated because mighty spirits dwelt in them. The Samoyed travelling ark-sledge, with its two deities, one with a stone head, the other a mere black stone, both dressed in green robes with red lappets, and both smeared with sacrificial blood, may serve as a type of stone-worship. And as for the Ostyaks, had the famous King Log presented himself among them, they would without more ado have wrapped his sacred person in rags, and set him up for worship on a mountain-top or in the forest.[1] The frequent stock-and-stone worship of modern India belongs especially to races non-Hindu or part-Hindu in race and culture. Among such may serve as examples the bamboo which stands for the Bodo goddess Mainou, and for her receives the annual hog, and the monthly eggs offered by the women;[2] the stone under the great cotton-tree of every Khond village, shrine of Nadzu Pennu the village deity;[3] the clod or stone under a tree, which in Behar will represent the deified soul of some dead personage who receives worship and inspires oracles there;[4] the stone kept in every house by the Bakadâra and Betadâra, which represents their god Bûta, whom they induce by sacrifice to restrain the demon-souls of the dead from troubling them;[5] the two rude stones placed under a shed among the Shanars of Tinnevelly, by the medium of which the great god and goddess receive sacrifice, but which are thrown away or neglected when done with.[6] , The remarkable groups of standing-stones in India are, in many cases at least, set up for each stone to represent
- ↑ Castrén, 'Finn. Myth.' p. 193, &c., 204, &c.; 'Voyages au Nord,' vol. viii. pp. 103, 410; Klemm, 'C. G.' vol. iii. p. 120. See also Steller, 'Kamtschatka,' pp. 265, 276.
- ↑ Hodgson, 'Abor. of India,' p. 174. See also Macrae in 'As. Res.' vol. vii. p. 196; Dalton, 'Kols,' in 'Tr. Eth. Soc.' vol. vi. p. 33.
- ↑ Macpherson, 'India,' pp. 103, 358.
- ↑ Bastian, 'Psychologie,' p. 177. See also Shortt, 'Tribes of Neilgherries,' in 'Tr. Eth. Soc.' vol. vii. p. 281.
- ↑ Elliot in 'Journ. Eth. Soc.' vol. i. 1869, p. 115.
- ↑ Buchanan, 'Mysore,' in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 739.
