falls, the deceased is addressed by the party sacrificing, who mentions the name of the animal, saying that it is sent to accompany him. The accompanying engraving represents the sacrificial part of the funeral obsequies of the Tudas.

After the sacrifice, a near relation cuts off two or three locks of hair from about the temples, when the body is conveyed to the recess of the wood, taken off the bier and placed on the pyre, the feet to the south, the face downwards, and without any of the dress or ornaments being removed. The relations and friends now throw over it handfuls of parched grain, of various descriptions, and of coarse sugar; other logs of wood being then heaped over the whole, the pyre is ignited, in the first instance by the person who cut off the locks of hair, and then by the other attendants.

These brief notices of the Tudas may not be closed without some reference to the singular custom prevalent among them of a plurality of husbands. A woman may have two or three husbands and as many cicibeos as her husbands may permit her to contract engagements with their consent is rarely withheld. A man may only contract marriage with one woman, but he may be the cicibeo of many. It would appear that the wife takes up her abode with each husband in succession, remaining a month or more as the case may be with each.

There are several distinct tribes of aborigines on the Nielgherry and other hills in the south, whose social and religious usages are of a highly interesting nature.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ABORIGINES OF INDIA, continued THE KHONDS--THEIR RELIGIOUS DOCTRINES-SUPERIOR AND INFERIOR DIVINITIES-GOD OF THE DEAD -NOTIONS OF VIRTUE AND VICE-ORIGIN OF HUMAN SACRIFICESTHE KHOND WORSHIP-THEIR PRIESTS-WORSHIP OF THE GOD OF LIGHT -WORSHIP OF THE EARTH-GODDESS-MERIAH SACRIFICE DESCRIBEDFEMALE INFANTICIDE-SUMMARY OF THE KHOND RELIGIOUS BELIEFINFANTICIDE IN RAJPUTANA AND OTHER PARTS OF INDIA.

BEFORE describing the condition of the semi-barbarous tribes of the hills, among whom the practice of female infanticide and human sacrifices prevails, it may be useful to direct attention to the map. By referring to that, it may be seen that a chain of mountains, called the Vindya mountains, extends east and west from Guzerat to the Ganges. From the east and west ends of this chain, a range of hills runs in the direction of Cape Comorin, at an average distance from the coast of from fifty to a hundred miles; these mountains are called the eastern and western Ghauts. Taking for a point of observation the upper end of the Gulf of Cambay, and looking across the plains direct in front, may be recognized, at a distance of nearly three hundred miles, the insulated Abu, the Saint's pinnacle, a lofty mountain. A little to the east of this, the range of rugged and elevated hills, called the Ara Valli, starts and runs on in a north-easterly direction, nearly as far as the imperial city of Delhi. The country lying between this ridge and the Vindya chain exhibits every variety of surface;-districts the most fertile, where genial nature shoots forth with exuberant, and almost spontaneous luxuriance, and where cultivation is carried on with incredible The surface has all the features of a garden: but we cannot be permitted to dwell on this charming scene; it is

ease.

not the prospect, however pleasing, that we are to gaze on, but the degraded occupants of this scene of riches and beauty, who, by reason of the painful contrast, appear the more vile. These hills are occupied by various aboriginal tribes, known by different names as Koles, Bhils, Khonds, Sourahs, Kulis, Tudas, already alluded to, Conravárs, &c. Those found on the elevated ridge in the south, on the Pulney, Shevroy and Nielgherry hills, are, as we have seen, inoffensive and harmless.

These various tribes, the scattered portions of the primitive population, were never subdued by the conquering Brahmanical invaders. Physical circumstances specially favoured their resistance to force; and also secured them against the pressure of those moral influences which might have assimilated them to the supervening and dominant classes. The regions just pointed out on the map were highly favourable to the preservation of the aborigines from the power of the invaders. Some portions of these aboriginal tribes that were exposed to more intimate contact with the conquering race have, indeed, in some degree been assimilated to them in manners and religion. They have become peaceful and settled, engaging in agricultural, pastoral, and mercantile pursuits, paying the exacted tribute, and rendering homage to the lords of the soil but beyond the sub-alpine regions occupied by these, in the higher and wilder tracts of country, among the central ridges, and the interjacent valleys of the Ghauts, large portions of the primitive races have been but very partially, if at all, subdued; and some have maintained their independence from the earliest times.

:

Those whose peculiarities we now propose to notice, are the aborigines, who roam about in the province of Orissa, a country lying on the eastern coast of India, at the upper part of the Bay of Bengal. In the northern division of this province, the Koles are found, in the central part the Khonds, and in the southern portion the Sourahs prevail. On the eastern side of the Ganjam district, bordering upon the Chilka lake, the Khonds are met with in considerable num

bers. On the north-west they are found on the borders of the Gondwana. Throughout the hitherto unexplored territory of the Nagpore state, they enjoy their primitive independence. In parts of the peninsula, even as low as within the tenth degree of latitude, the Khonds exercise their wild dominion.

The account of the first intercourse between the English and these aboriginal tribes is highly interesting; it may be seen in a report which was written for the Madras Government by Captain S. Charters Macpherson of the Madras army. This gentleman, who evidently possessed qualifications of a high order for the enterprise, was entrusted with a commission by the Supreme Government of India, with the design of suppressing the Meriah Sacrifice and female infanticide among the wild tribes under notice. Captain Macpherson, from successive visits and temporary residence among the Khonds, became better acquainted with their social condition and religious peculiarities, and eventually furnished a most interesting paper to the Royal Asiatic Society, which has been published in the Journal of that body. From that paper, and incidental notices that appeared in the Calcutta Christian Observer and the Calcutta Review the present brief account is prepared.

It may be remarked in the outset, that as the details of doctrines and of rites, of legends and of narratives, vary in almost every district, it must be exceedingly difficult to arrive at certainty on the subjects of inquiry, and proportionally so, to reduce to an embodied form the oral traditions collected. There being no hereditary or organized priesthood among the Khonds, the ceremonials of the gods, composed of rites, invocations, hymns, legends, and recitals, are the only repository of materials doctrinal and ritual, from which the main outlines and spirit of the superstition can be deduced.

THE RELIGIOUS DOCTRINES OF THE KHONDS.

The Khonds believe in the existence of One Supreme Being, self-existing, the source of good, and Creator of the

universe, of the inferior gods, and of man.

This divinity

is known in some districts as Boora Pennu, or the god of light; in others, as Bella Pennu, or the sun god; and the sun, and the place from which it rises beyond the sea, are his chief abodes.

In the beginning Boora Pennu created for himself a consort called Tari Pennu, the earth goddess and the source of evil. He afterwards created the earth. As he walked forth upon it with his consort, she was found wanting in her attention to him, refusing to scratch Boora Pennu's back when requested to do so; he resolved to create from the substance of the earth a new being, Man, to pay him due homage; and, for the benefit of this new race, the Supreme called into being the vegetable and animal kingdom. Tari was filled with jealousy, and attempted to frustrate his purpose; she, however, only so far succeeded as to change the intended order of the work, as preserved in a generally received legend: Boora Pennu took a handful of earth and cast it behind him to create man; but Tari caught it and cast it on one side, when all the varieties of vegetable life sprang into being. He repeated the act, and she did as before; casting the earth into the ocean, when fish, and all things that live in water, were formed. Boora Pennu took a third handful and cast it behind him; this she caught and flung aside, when animals wild and tame sprung into life. The next handful she seized and threw it up into the air, from which proceeded the feathered tribes. Boora Pennu now perceived what Tari had done to frustrate his purposes, and laying his hand on her head, placed a fifth handful of earth on the ground from which the human race was educed, Tari Pennu then placed her hands on the earth and said, "Let these beings you have made exist; you shall create no more." Then a sweat exuded from Boora Pennu's body, which he collected in his hand, casting it around said, “To all that I have created," whence arose the distinction of sex, and the continuation of the species.

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