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336
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
CORNAC.
HERE is the latest quotation I can find of this curious Europeo-Indianism, as an addition to those in Yule's Hobson-Jobson, s. v. It means an elephant-driver.
1895."Si deux elephants sont capturés, l' un reviendra au maitre de la monture: le chasseur et le cornac se partageront le prix de l'autre."Aymonier, Voyage dans le Laos, Vol. I. p. 64. R. C. TEMPLE.
BAZARUCCO AND BEZOAR.
HERE is a further contribution towards the history of these words, vide Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 8. vv., Budgrook and Besoar.
1689. "Here (Borneo) is also Gold and Bezoar. This Stone breeds in the Maw of a Sheep or Goat, about a knot of Grass that stays in the Maw, and is often found within the Stone. The Persians call these Beasts Bazans, and the Stone Bazar, which is, a Market, as by excellence proper for a Market or Fair: and from the same word comes the Bazarucques, he east money that is sent to the Market. The Stone is smooth and greenish, and the more substantial and weighty it is, the better it is and of the greater vertue. In the Country of Pan, near Malacca, they find a Stone in the Gall of a certain Swine, more highly esteemed than the Bazar. It is of a reddish colour, as smooth and slippery in the feeling as Soap, and exceeding bitter; so that when it is to be used, they only steep it in cold water, and the water is a most soveraign Antidote against all poyson, and an effectual cordial against all infectious Diseases."-Mandelslö, Voyages and Travels into the East Indies, E. T., 1669, p. 124.
R. C. TEMPLE.
A TELUGU SUPERSTITION.
WHEN troubled by fleas or mange dogs bring their hinder parts (or posteriors) in contact with the ground and move on for some distance in that repulsive attitude and in this manner some of the parts of their bodies which are not accessible to the tail or the teeth are scratched or scrubbed, and when a Telugu observes in a house this canine action for which Nature is responsible, he at once attaches to it a superstition to the effect that the house is ruined, but as the house is usually not ruined in consequence it may be inferred what truth there, is in the superstition!
M. N. VENKETSWAMY.
[DECEMBER, 1898.
INDIGO AS A TABUED PLANT.
I HAVE seen it stated that Musalmans object to red in the Muharram. Is this objection general? and what is its foundation P
It would perhaps explain the fact that in the east of the Panjab red is distinctly the Hindů, and indigo (which good Hindus will not grow) the Musalman colour.
But why will not Hindas grow indigo? There inust surely be some older reason than its adoption by Musalmans as a favourite colour in their clothes.
DENZIL IBBETSON, in P. N. and Q. 1883.
A WANDERING GHOST AT THE NICOBARS. THE following extract is from the diary of the Agent at Mûs in Car Nicobar:
"8th May 1896. The chief Offandi, Friend of England, and a few other notables of Mûs came and asked my permission to expel from the Beacon the ghost of the boy who had died the other day. I told them that the Beacon was a standard erected in honor of Her Majesty the Queen Empress, and that no ghost could go into it. I also told them that, if they defiled the Beacon, they must not expect the usual presents from the Queen (i. e., the Indian Government). They then went into the nearest jungle, and caught the ghost in a thick bush and threw it into the sea.
R. C. TEMPLE.
MURDER IN ORDER TO PROCURE A SON.
IN December, 1885, a low class Musalman woman 35 years of age, from the Jalandhar District, Pañjab, arrived in Port Blair, sentenced to transportation for life for murder in the following circumstances. She had had several male children
who had died in infancy, and had been told by a faqir that, if she killed the eldest son or daughter
of some one, and bathed herself over the dead
body, she would have another son, who would live. She had daughters, one of them a little child, with whom the eldest daughter of a neighbour, aged three, used to play. With the assistance of her elder daughter, a grown girl, she took the little girl into her home and cut her throat. Next day she and the elder daughter took the body into a barley field, where the woman bathed herself over it.
R. C. TEMPLE.
