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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1885.
begotten egg.* From this sprung the goddess Nashtu, who sat, for a time, on a water-lily; but finding her quarters too restricted, she sent to Hîrâman, the god of the lower world, for some earth, upon which she successively fixed the different objects of nature. First, rivers proceeded from her, then a reptile of the crocodile type, afterwards grasses and reeds, an elk, fishes, trees, buffaloes, a priest, and last of all a woman. The Hos relate that their god Sing Bonga, who was self-created, made the earth and furnished it with vegetation and animals, first the domestic and then the wild ones. He then created a boy and a girl, and taught them how to make rice-beer. This produced amatory desires, and they became the parents of twelve boys and twelve girls. For these children Sing Bonga made a feast, providing all manner of food. The guests were told to pair off, and taking the kind of food they preferred, to go away and shift for themselves. They did 80, and their choices can still be discerned in the various modes of life among mankind. The Santâls say that a wild goose came over the great ocean, and laid two eggs, from which the first parents of their tribe were hatched.
We have more than once intimated that it is impossible in all cases to draw the line sharply between what is primitive in the religious beliefs and usages of these tribes, and what has been borrowed in whole or in part from Brahmanic or Buddhist sources,-chiefly the former. It is not uncommon to observe Hinduism and paganism struggling for supremacy in the same tribe and the same village, now the one and now the other claiming the larger share of interest.
Hinduism, with its extraordinary power of assimilating alien systems, has usually been content to insist upon some general and public observance of caste rules, while not interfering with the private observance of the old religion; or it has given to the ancient superstitions some new explanation or purpose, and fitted them into its own system. So it would be hard to find an aboriginal tribe so completely transformed into Hindûs in language, dress, and manner of life, that its non-Aryan origin may not be detected by its private religious usages, as well as by its pbysical traits. Facts illustrative of this have already been cited. We have spoken chiefly of the influence of Hinduism upon the pagan religion, and it cannot be doubted that this will ultimately result in the effacement of the latter, unless this work be done by Christianity; but the counter influence of the older faith upon Hinduism is not less certain, if less easily traced, and would form a most interesting theme for inquiry; but we cannot enter upon it here.
In conclusion, we trust that this necessarily imperfect sketch of the religion of the aboriginal tribes of India may at least serve to attract those who are interested in the history of the religious development of the race to an important source of evidence. If Hinduism, whose many-sidedness is well symbolised by the many-faced images of its gods, furnish greater attractions to the majority of students, still it must not be forgotten that the simple beliefs and rites that we have sketched belong to a much earlier stage of religious growth, and may, if attentively studied, throw much welcome light on the genius of all religion,
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
BY PANDIT S. M. NATESA SASTRI. X.-THE BRAIMAN GIRL THAT MARRIED devise excuses for taking her away from her A TIGER.
youthful lovers. Thus passed on some years, In a certain village there lived an old Brah- till the girl was very near attaining her puberty maņ who had three sons and a daughter. The and then the parents, fearing that they would girl being the youngest was brought up most be driven out of their caste if they failed tenderly and became spoilt, and so whenever to dispose of her hand in marriage before she she saw a beautiful boy she would say to her came to the years of maturity, began to be parents that she must be wedded to him. Her eager about finding a bridegroom for her parents were, therefore, much put about to Now near their village there lived a fierce tiger,
• This mnat he the Brahmanda or world-egg of the Hindús, about which the Brahmanda-Purdna was written. -E .
Hiraman in Hindi would mean diamond. In folklore it is a parrot gifted with human speech.-ED.]
