Indian Antiquary Vol 24

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 62

58
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1895.
scatter betel leaves and copper coins.19 Among the Dharwâr Lingayats, before the body is buried, twenty-one small pieces of copper with some religious words written on them are laid on the body.20 That the origin of iron as a spirit scarer lies in its value in cases of actual cautery finds support in the practice prevalent among the Dharwar Masálars of branding new-born children with a red-hot needle in the form of a cross.21 Among the Madhav Brahmans of Dharwây, when a woman suffers much during child-birth, old gold coins are washed, and the water is given her to drink.22 The Bijapur Radis lay copper coins on the spot where the funeral pyre is built.3 The Beni-Isra'ils of Western India lay * knife nnder a babe's pillow to keep off spirits.24 The Gonds have a god called Chuda Pen in the form of an iron bracelet.25 At Gond marriages copper coins are waved round the bridegroom's head and coirs are worshipped by the Gaiti Gonds.26 The Oråous lay a coin in the mouth of the dead, 27 originally to keep the spirit from leaving the body.29 The Greeks and Romans continued the practise, explaining it by saying the coin was to pay Charon.29 In Bengal, when the father sees the new-born child for the first time he puts money in its hands.30 The arrow bends and other iron weapons, found in rude stone tombs in the Nilgiris, seem placed there with the object of keeping off evil spirits, not for the use of the dead.31
The Caunii, an ancient nation of Lesser Asia, at certain seasons met in armour and beat the air with lances and went to the boundary to drive away foreign spirits,32 When an Arab scesa whirlwind he says "Halil, helil, ya mash um," - that is, “Iron), iron, oh thou vile one!"32
Among the Burmans, if a woman gives birth to a atill-born child, a piece of iron is placed in the cloth in which the body is wrapped, and at the burial a member of the family says: - "Never return to thy mother's womb till this metal becomes soft as down."34 The ascetics or hermits in Burma carry an iron staff hung with rings.35 The Bnrmans put pellets of gold under the skin to be wound-proof,30 The Sinn king's sword is dipped into holy water, and the water is drunk by the king at the time of coronntion.37 The Chinese authorities objected to the Shanghai-Woosung Railway because it would disturb the spirits of the earth and the air, and so lower the valne of property. When a Chinese child is sick, it is carried along the street by the mother, who drops coins at every ten paces, or, if the child is very bad, its body is rubbed with the coins and they are thrown into the street 39 In China, when a person is sick of a devil-sent epidemie, a sword, if possible a sword which has ent off a criminal's head, is hung over his bed, 40 and coins, generally pierced coins, are worn as charms. A sword is a sacred emblem in Japan kept in the temple of Atsnta.
Iu North-West Afrien Musalman women, when pregnant, often sit on an old iron gun to be relieved of dangers of child-birth.43
A queen in South Africa, says Dr. Livingstone, had a number of iron ringa on her ankles with little bits of slicet iron fixed to them. In North Africa, the fire doctor generally keeps
19 From MS. Noter.
Bombay Cateteer, Vol. XXII. p. 115. 21 Op. cit. Vol. XXII. p. 211. 22 Op.cit. Vol. XXII. p. 74. 23 Op. cit. Vol. XXIII. p. 155.
* Op. cit. Vol. XVIII. p. 526. 25 Hislop's Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces, App. III.
26 Op. cit. p. 18. 27 Op. cit., 22.
2 Dalton's Descriptire Ethnology of Bengal, p. 261. ~ The great god of the Central Province Gaiti Gonds is a pice in a hollow piece of bamboo. A space, a foot square, is cleared at the foot of soine holy tree, the pice is bronght in its bamboo care, taken out and laid on the ground. Heaps of rice, a heap for each deity tley Wurship are arrunged round the pice: chickens and goats (formerly cows were offered) are fed on the rice, killed, and their blood sprinkled between the pico and the rice. On the blood liquor is poured. The pice in then put in the case (Hislop's Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces, p. 22).
90 Ward'. Viere of the Hivulus. Vol. III. p. 156. 1 Jour. Ethno, Soc. Vol. I. p. 161. 82 Herod. I. in Hume, Vol. II. p. 399.
38 From MS. Notes." Shway Yoe's The Burman, Vol. I. p. 3. * Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 169.
36 Yule's Cathay, Vol. I. p. 94. [And of silver.- ED.) 37 Jones' Crouens, p. 436. [This belongs apparently to the section on Water.- ED.) 38 Captain H, O. Selby, R. E.
Gray's China, Vol. II. p. 80. *• Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 31. 41 Jour. Ethno. Soc. Vol. I. p. 89.
** Reed's Japan, Vol. II. p. 269. 13 Hay's Western Barbary, p. 117.
# Dr. Livingstone's Travels in South Africa, p. 273.