________________
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS
265 or at least behind the ear. In the same way at a wedding a lemon is tied in the turban of the bridegroom and in the dress of the bride, that something sour may safeguard the sweetness of their lot.
When illness occurs, it is put down to the influence of the evil eye. If a child has fever, or is sick after eating, the women at once say that its illness was caused by some person possessing the wicked power of the evil eye, and elaborate remedies are taken. A very usual method is to take a little cup and put in it smokeless burning embers, and over them mustard, salt and grain, till a fine smoke is made, and then to turn it upside down on to a brass plate, and, holding it firmly in position, to fix the two together with manure and water. They call this Najara bandhi and put it under the sick child's bed. After three or four days, when in the course of nature the fever has abated, they pull out the cup and plate and throw the contents away at a junction of three roads.
If a man is ill, one method of removing the influence of the evil eye from him is to wave a loaf of millet bread round his head and then give it to a black dog; if the animal eats it, they believe the influence of the evil eye passes into him.
The more enlightened Jaina declare that they have no fear Evil of evil spirits (bhūta), but the women are very much afraid spirits. of them and, like all Indians, believe that Europeans share this fear and have their elaborate freemasonry ritual as a means of dealing with such spirits. Bhūta are specially active at Divāli time, and in order to prevent them coming to visit their homes, the women before Divāli go to some cross-roads where three or four ways meet, carrying waterpots. They make a circle in the dust with the water and in the centre of this place a small cake of grain. Indeed at any season when they are afraid of evil spirits visiting their house, they put vermilion, grain and something black into the bottom of a broken pot to guard against their coming.
Bhūta also live in pīpal trees, and during the last days
