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specimens when they are young, and treats them with particular kindness till they are almost grown up. Indeed, they are treated thus by the whole village. At the appointed time they are slowly crushed to death or smothered in a mud bath, and bits of their flesh are then cut out and strewn along the boundary lines. Boys are preferred, but either boys or girls may be used. This sacrifice is sometimes made directly to the 'Boundarygod,'[11] an abstraction which is not unique; for, besides the divinities recorded above, mention is made also of a 'Judgment-god.' Over each village and house preside the Manes of good men gone; while the 'father is god on earth' to every one. They used to destroy all their female children, and this, together with their national custom of offering human sacrifices, has been put down with the greatest difficulty by the British, who confess that there is every probability that in reality the crime still *obtains among the remoter clans. These Khonds are situate in the Madras presidency, and are aborigines of the Eastern Gh[=a]ts. The most extraordinary views about them have been published. Despite their acknowledged barbarity, savageness, and polytheism, they have been soberly credited with a belief in One Supreme God, 'a theism embracing polytheism, and other notions which have been abstracted from their worship of the sun as 'great
god.
Since these are by far the most original savages of India, a completer sketch than will be necessary in the case of others may not be unwelcome. The chief god is the light-or sun-god. "In the beginning the god of light created a wife, the goddess of earth, the source of evil." On the other hand, the sun god is a good god. Tari, the earth-divinity, tried to prevent Bella[12] Pennu (sun-god) from creating man. But he cast behind him a handful of earth, which became man. The first creation was free of evil; earth gave fruit without labor (the Golden Age); but the dark goddess sowed in man the seed of sin. A few were sinless still, and these became gods, but the corrupt no longer found favor in Bella (or Boora) Pennu's eyes. He guarded them no more. So death came to man. Meanwhile Bella and Tari contended for superiority, with comets, whirlwinds, and mountains, as weapons. According to one belief, Bella won; but others hold that Tari still maintains the struggle. The sun-god created all inferior deities, of rain, fruit, *hunt, boundaries, etc., as well as all tutelary local divinities.[13] Men have four kinds of fates.
