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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1895.
In the Kônkan, among Kunbis and other lower classes, when women visitors enter a room where a new-born child is laid, they take a pinch of dust off their feet, wave it round the child, and blow it into the air and on the ground.53 In Thânî, when a mother goes out with a young child on her hip, if she cannot get lamp-black to rub between its eyes, she takes dust off her left foot and rubs it on the child's forehead.54 In Thânâ and in many other districts of the Kônkan and the Dekhan, the second day of the Hôli festival, which is the beginning of the new field-year, is the dust or dhul day, when people throw dust on each other. If a Dekhan Mhâr is possessed, the exorcist takes a pinch of dust off his own feet, and rabs it between the eye-brows of the possessed person, and the spirit leaves his body. The Dekhan Chitpavan priest, at a marriage, rabs bandles of betel-nute with sand, and sprinkles water over them. The Chitpâvan boy, after his thread-girding, is told to rub his hands with sand before he washes them, and the Chitpåvan girl, on coming of age, is rubbed with seven kinde of earth and bathed.55 On the fifth day after & birth, the Poona Salis scatter grains of sand about the image of Sathvai.66 The marriage guardians of the Lôdhis, a class of Hindustani Hindus in Poona, are pinches of dust picked from five ways, and laid before the house gods.57 The Poona Râuls lay handfals of dust on the grave.58 The Dekhan Kunbis, at the Holi festival, throw mud and dirt on every one they meet.5e The Dekhan Râmôšia on the dirt-day or dhulvád, the second day of the Holi festival in March-April, carry about pots of earth, and if they meet a well-dressed man throw the earth on him, and ask him to come and play and wrestle.60 The Poona Chambhars put sand under the mother's pillow after child-birth and, when they bury the dead, the body is laid on the ground and all present throw handfuls of earth on it.61 The chief mourner among the Poona Halalkhors throws a little earth on the body before the grave is filled. In the Dekhan on pôlá or bull's day (July-September), cattle are rabbed with red earth. Among the Ahmadnagar Bhồis, the chief mourner throws earth on the dead. Earth was an early food or stayer of hunger. In the terrible famine of 1803, in Ahmadnagar, in the Bombay Dekban, tamarind leaves mixed with white earth were made into a jelly and eaten. Among the Satârâ Mhårs, when the body is laid in the grave, the chief mourner throws a handful of earth over it. The Killikiâtar wanderers of Bijapur rub their cheeks with red earth.66 People suffering from venereal disease come to the Qadart's tomb at Yemnûr, in Dharwar, and smear their bodies with mud, that they may be cured of the disease.67 The Bijapur Rajput, before a marriage, sends a near kinsman to the banks of a stream or the side of a pond. He worships a plot of earth, spreads his waist-cloth over it, opens the earth close by with a pickaxe, gathers as much as is loosened, lays it on his waist-cloth, and carries it home. He spreads the earth in the marriage hall and on it sets the image of the marriage guardian. The Bilejádar Lingâyats of Dharwas throw handfuls of earth on the body in the grave. If a Dharwâr Dêvàng girl, who belongs to the ling-wearing division, marries a man who wears the thread, to purify her, she is first rubbed with earth and white ashes, a blade of dar bhá grass is passed over her head, and she is oiled and bathed in warm water.70 The Kâbâligârs, a class of Dharwar beggars, rub their brows, shoulders and eyes with red earth.71 At a Dharwar jangam funeral, all present lay a handful of earth on the body, after it is seated in the grave.72 Karnatak Brahmans, at a thread-girding, fill five pots with red earth and worship them,73 Shâlâpur Lingayats put in the grave dust from the jangam's feet, and, when one of their girls comes of age, the jangam throws dust from his feet on her body, and she
68 Information from the peon Babaji.
64 Information from Mr. Govind Pandit. * Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVIII. pp. 119, 141. Op. cit. Vol. XVIII. p. 363. 07 Op.cit. Vol. XVIII. p. 399.
58 Op. cit. Vol. XVIII. p. 381. Op. cit. Vol. XVIII. p. 298.
69 Op. cit. Vol. XVIII. p. 414. 61 Op.cit. Vol. XVIII, p. 327.
Op. cit. Vol. XVII. p. 157. " Lt. Col. Etheridge's Famines in the Bombay Presidency, p. 80. 6 Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XIX. p. 115.
66 Op. cit. Vol. XXIII. p. 198. 67 Op.cit. Vol. XXII. p. 790.
68 Op.cit. Vol. XXIII. P. 159. • Op. cit. Vol. XXII. p. 165.
79 Op. cit. Vol. XXII. p. 166. 71 Op. cit. Vol. XXII. p. 209,
72 Op. cit. Vol. XXII. p. 115. 78 Dubois, Vol. I. p. 294.
