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160
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JUNE, 1895.
after the wife's death, the husband for two and half years wears a thick daub of charcoal paste over his face; widows wear a blackened band of dry banyan leaf round the forehead.21 Lamp-black and oil are applied to their eyes by Msuabili women in East Africa. Among the Colerado North American Indians mourners cover their faces with black paint.23 In Mediæval Europe, black oxen and black cows were specially valued as sacrificial animals.24 Russian women wear black in mourning. The Germans pat black cummin seed in a babe's cradle before its christening to keep off evil spirits.* Sir W. Scott found beads of coral with bones and ashes in a burial urn in a cairn at Liddesdale in Scotland.27 In Scotland a thread of black wool with nine knots cures a sprain. When a death happens in a Devonshire house, some crapo or other black staff is tied to the hire, or the bees die.20 The practice has its root in the belief that the dead will come back and will go into the bees, unless he be scared by black. So it was beld that to find treasure, that is, to scare the fiends which guard and hide the treasure, the seeker should use a black he-goat and a black hen.
White.- White is the ghostly colour, and whitewash is much used in the worship of the rural and early gods. Siva, the lord of spirits, is white 31 The Lingayats smear the brow with white ashes.32 To keep the Evil Eye from blighting a crop, the Dekhan Kunbi sets in his field a white pot at the end of a pole. Among most Brabmanic Hindus the wedding dress is wbite. According to Dr. Buchanan the people of North Kânara wash their houses with a white clay called jaydi manu, that is, earth from Mount Jaydi, which they mix with the ashes of mudeli bark.34 Some Karnatak Brahmans, in the thread-girding ceremony, cover with chalk the outside of a copper vessel, into which they entice the boy's special guardian.35 The Burmese king has a white throne, & white umbrella, and a white elephant.» In China, at a Buddhist priest's funeral, all present wear white waist-bands.37 On her coronation day, Queen Ranavalona I. of Madagascar had her brow marked with white clay.38 The people in the outlying parts of Nubia, when they suddenly saw Burkhardt, said: - "Save us from the devil."39 White horses and snow-white pigs were considered inviolable in Mediaeval Europe.co The Russian babe, after baptism, is clad in white. In the early Christian Church in Ireland and Scotland, white was the baptism colour. Pennant (1800) in his Tour through South Wales, p. 28, noticing the whitening of the houses, says :-“This castom, which we observed to be so universally followed from the time we entered Glamorganshire, made me curions enough to inquire into its origin. It was entirely due to superstition, the good people thinking that by means of this general whitening they shut the door of their houses against the devil." In England, at the funerals of unmarried persons of both sexes, as well as of infants, the scarves, hat-bands and gloves given as mourning used to be white.“ White is an unlucky colour for English kings. Charles the First was crowned in white. In ancient times, in England, people used to raise the devil by making a white circle with chalk, setting an old hat in the centre of the circle, and repeating the Lord's Prayer.
Comb. - Among high-class Hindus in Bombay, when a girl comes of age, her lap is filled with fruit, rice, betel nuts and leaves, and a comb. Among the Beni-Isra'il coming of age and
21 Stanley's Dark Continent, Vol. II. p. 141.
13 Newa' East Africa, p. 61. » Pall Mall Garette in Bombay Gazette, 30th May 1884. Grimm's Touto. Myth, Vol. I. p. 50. » Mrs. Romanoff. Rites and Customs of the Greco-Ruanian Church, p. 239. Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 14
17 Note 2 to Lay of the Last Minusdrel. » Dyer's Poll-Lore, p. 149. >Op. cit. p. 127. * Grimm's Tento. Myth, Vol. III. p. 977. n Ward's View of the Hindus, Vol. I. P. xxviii.
Information from Mr. Tirmalrao. » Trans. By. Lit. Soc. Vol. III. p. 919.
N Buchanan'a Mysore, Vol. III. p. 229. 16 Dubois, Vol. I. p. 22%
* Shway Yoe's The Burman, Vol. II. p. 911. 37 Gray's China, Vol. I. p. 123.
» Sibree's Madagascar, p. 294. » Burkhardt's Nubia, p. 377.
** Grima's Teuto. Myth. Vol. I. p. 54. 1 Mrs. Romanoft's Rites and Customs of the Greco-Russian Church, p. 73.
nderson's Rarly Church of Scotland, Vol. I. p. 197. Brand's Popular Antiquities,VOL. II. P. 581. + Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 283.
46 Jones' Crown, P. 812 Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 38.
47 Information from Mr. P. B. Joshi.
