Book Title: Handbook of History of Religions
Author(s): Edward Washburn
Publisher: Sanmati Tirth Prakashan Pune

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Page 545
________________ Sin is carried away by the sacrifice, but this seems to be merely an extension of the simpler idea; the god condones a fault after an expression of repentance and good-will. What lies further back is not revealed in the early texts, though it is easy to make them fruitful in "theories of sacrifice.") [Footnote 5: Of course no tribe has what civilization would call a temple, but some have what answer to it, namely, a filthy hut where live the god and his priest. Yet the Gonds used to build roads and irrigate very well.] [Footnote 6: The (R[=a]j) Gonds were first subdued by the R[=a]jputs, and where the Hindus and Gonds have intermarried they are known as R[=alj Gonds. Others have become the 'Mohammedan Gonds.' Otherwise, in the case of the pure or '(=A]ssul' (the greater number), neither Hindu nor Mohammedan has had much influence over them, either socially or religiously. The Gonds whipped the British in 1818; but since then they have become 'pacified.') [Footnote 7: It is often no more than a small hatchet stuck in the belt, if they wear the latter, which in the jungle is more raiment than they are wont to put on.] [Footnote 8: The snake in the tree is common to many tribes, both being tutelary. The Gonds are 'sons of the forest Trees,' and of the northern bull.] [Footnote 9: It seems to us that this feature need not be reckoned as a sign of exogamy. It is often, so far as we have observed, only a stereotyped form to express bashfulness.] [Footnote 10: Some say earth-god. Thus the account given in JRAS. 1842, p. 172, says ' male earth-god as ancestor,' but most modern writers

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