pp. 192-196; Captain H. Harkness, Description of a Singular Aboriginal Race inhabiting the Summit of the Neilgherry Hills (London, 1832), p. 133; F. Metz, The Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, Second Edition (Mangalore, 1864), p. 78; Jagor, “Ueber die Badagas im Nilgiri-Gebirge,” Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie (1876), pp. 196 sq. At the Badaga funerals witnessed by Mr. E. Thurston “no calf was brought near the corpse, and the celebrants of the rites were satisfied with the mere mention by name of a calf, which is male or female according to the sex of the deceased.”
119
H. Harkness, l. c.
120
J. W. Breeks, An Account of the Primitive Tribes and Monuments of the Nīlagiris (London, 1873), pp. 23 sq.; W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas (London, 1906), pp. 376 sq.
121
E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884) pp. 927 sq. In other parts of North-Western India on the eleventh day after a death a bull calf is let loose with a trident branded on its shoulder or quarter “to become a pest.” See (Sir) Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, Report on the Revision of Settlement of the Panipat Tahsil and Karnal Parganah of the Karnal District (Allahabad, 1883), p. 137. In Behar, a district of Bengal, a bullock is also let loose on the eleventh day of mourning for a near relative. See G. A. Grierson, Bihār Peasant Life (Calcutta, 1885), p. 409.
122
W. Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual (Amsterdam, 1900), p. 83; Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, translated by Maurice Bloomfield (Oxford, 1897), pp. 308 sq. (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xlii.).
123
M. N. Venketswami, “Telugu Superstitions,” The Indian Antiquary, xxiv. (1895) p. 359.
124
A. Grünwedel, “Sinhalesische Masken,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, vi. (1893) pp. 85 sq.
125
J. G. Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 104 sq. I have modernised the spelling.
126
J. Perham, “Sea Dyak Religion,” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 10 (December 1882), p. 232.
127
Rev. Richard Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, Second Edition (London, 1870), p. 101.
128
T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. (1901) p. 302; id., The Meitheis (London, 1908), pp. 106 sq.
129
T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. (1901) p. 302.
130
T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis (London, 1908), pp. 104-106.
131
Compare The Dying God, pp. 116 sq.
132
The Jataha or Stories of the Buddha's former Births, vol. v., translated by H. T. Francis (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 71 sq.
133
Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 342.
134
Rev. S. Mateer, Native Life in Travancore (London, 1883), p. 136.
135
J. Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme (Folk-lore Society, London, 1881), pp. 35 sq.
136
Bagford's letter in Leland's Collectanea, i. 76, quoted by J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 246 sq., Bohn's edition (London, 1882-1883).
137
In The Academy, 13th Nov. 1875, p. 505, Mr. D. Silvan Evans stated that he knew of no such custom anywhere in Wales; and the custom seems to be now quite unknown in Shropshire. See C. S. Burne and G. F. Jackson, Shropshire Folk-lore (London, 1883), pp. 307 sq.
138
The authority for the statement is a Mr. Moggridge, reported in Archaeologia Cambrensis, second series, iii. 330. But Mr. Moggridge did not speak from personal knowledge, and as he appears to have taken it for granted that the practice of placing bread and salt upon the breast of a corpse was a survival of the custom of “sin-eating,” his evidence must be received with caution. He repeated his statement, in somewhat vaguer terms, at a meeting of the Anthropological Institute, 14th December 1875. See Journal of the Anthropological Institute, v. (1876) pp. 423 sq.
139
J. A. Dubois, Mœurs des Peuples de l'Inde (Paris, 1825), ii. 32 sq.
140
R. Richardson, in Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p. 86, § 674 (May, 1884).
141
Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p. 86, § 674, ii. p. 93, § 559 (March, 1885). Some of these customs have been already referred to in a different connexion. See The Dying God, p. 154. In Uganda the eldest son used to perform a funeral ceremony, which consisted in chewing some seeds which he took with his lips from the hand of his dead father; some of these seeds he then blew over the corpse and the rest over one of the childless widows who thereafter became his wife. The meaning of the ceremony is obscure. The eldest son in Uganda never inherited his father's property. See the Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 117.
142
Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. p. 179, § 745 (July, 1886).
143
E. Schuyler, Turkistan (London, 1876), ii. 28.
144
W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 401 sqq.
145
The Welsh custom of “sin-eating” has been interpreted by Mr. E. S. Hartland as a modification of an older custom of eating the corpse. See his article, “The Sin-eater,” Folk-lore, iii. (1892) 145-157; The Legend of Perseus, ii. 291 sqq., iii. p. ix. I cannot think his interpretation probable or borne out by the evidence. The Badaga custom of transferring the sins of the dead to a calf which is then let loose and never used again (above, pp. 36sq.), the Tahitian custom of burying the sins of a person whose body is carefully preserved by being embalmed, and the Manipur and Travancore customs of transferring the sins of a Rajah before his death (pp. 39, 42sq.) establish the practice of transferring sins in cases where there can be no question of eating the corpse. The original intention of such practices was perhaps not so much to take away the sins of the deceased as to rid the survivors of the dangerous pollution of death. This comes out to some extent in the Tahitian custom.
146
Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 86.
147
Plato, Laws, xi. 12, p. 933 b.
148
Ἐφημερὶς ἀρχαιολογική, 1883, col. 213, 214; G. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 802, lines 48 sqq. (vol. ii. pp. 652 sq.).
149
Marcellus, De medicamentis, xxxiv. 102. A similar cure is described by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxii. 149); you are to touch the warts with chick-peas on the first day of the moon, wrap the peas in a cloth, and throw them away
