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JUNE, 1898.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
153
My informants recognised the Barmese word ywe, Abrus or Adenanthera seed, but called it sbtpâa and mdiba, i. e., zinc boa (8ôt, zinc; Stevens, p. 128, has srôt), or seed boa (me, seed), meaning thereby (P) zinc money or seed money.
The word for aoopper coin is '18i, or lui, and the numeral coefficient is h'taik,11 the pice being enumerated precisely as in Burmese and the neighbouring idioms, as copper + number + coefficient, e. g, one pice is loi-mua-h'taik = copper-one-piece.
My informants were also not likely to know much about the metals, and what has been gathered is very little.
Gold: - good qualities are t'ma'ah, Haswell, p. 74: Stevens, p. 84: t'o'chauk : o'chit: t'op'kit, red gold. Bad qualities are - môj8, Burmese, billon : t'òparop, Haswell, p. 74 : t'òparop.
Silver : - mon, Haswell, pp. 128, 133 : sòn.
Brass : - mem'rut, Haswell, p. 81: parut, Haswell, p. 95: prst: prut. Inferior brass - h'rut-p'sők (? white brass). Bad brass — 'laik,12 Haswell, p. 116.
Copper :- lúi, Haswell, p. 116 : perut-K'kit, and k'rut-K'kit, i. o., red brass.13
Tin, iron and lead are much mixed up: thus :-Iron : pasda, Haswell, p. 88: proa : sốwa. Tin :- påsdatàik, Haswell, p. 88, white iron: p'asa-k'taing, white iron: pakauhp'ataing, Haswell p. 94, white lead : pkah-'taing, white lead. Lead: - p'akauk-p'āyaing, Haswell, p. 94 : M'k úh-l'yaing, or simply 'kuh,
(To be continued.)
NOTES ON THE SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
BY SIR JAMES CAMPBELL, K.C.I.E., I.C.S.
(Continued from p. 140.) The Fair. The hair seems to have been considered an inlet for spirits, because it leads to the opening in the skull. Aair is also curiously affected by fear, and stands on end when # vision or ghost is seen. In a dry climate it crackles and becomes full of electricity. These may have been among the reasons why the hair plays so noticeable a part in early beliefs and ritos. Because spirits enter through the hair, in the Kdå kan the medium lets his hair fall loose, in order that his familiar spirit may enter into his body. It is believed by the Hindus that, it the medium forgets to untie the knot of his head hair, he will not be able to become possessed.75 In the Dakhan, when a knowing man is called, he seizes the patient by the hair. A pregnant Chitpavan woman should not let her hair hang loose, or she may be attar ked by spirits.70 The Lingayațs of Dharwas say that they cut the hair of girls under five, as, if their hair is long, it might touch a woman in her monthly sickness, which they believe would give the child certain diseases.77 The Sțivaišnava Brahmans shave the moustache, because they hold that, if water touches the moustache in passing into the mouth, it becomes the same as liquor.79 At their sadi katri sona, or the hair-cutting ceremony among the Lingayats, the priest holds two betel-leaves in the form of a pair of scissors, and with them touches the longest hair on, the child's head." Among the Bijapur Bedars, when a woman, who has been ont-casted for eating or committing adultery with a man of low caste, is let back into caste, her head is shaved, and her tongue burned with a barning rui twig. When a Bijapár-Bedar man is guilty of adultery with a kinswoman of the same gotra, or family-stock, his head and face are shaved, and he is 11 H'taik, spelt getaik, in Stevens, p. 77.
11 Tin socording to one informant ! 18 H'rut is lead according to one informant ! 13 Information from Mr. P. B. Joshi.
** K. Raghunath's Patane Prabhw. 11 Dharar Garettoer, p. 111.
18 Op. cit. p. 99. 19 Op. cit. p. 111.
# Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XXIII. p. 94.
