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NOTES AND QUERIES.
JULY, 1899.]
He would not yield, and the woman on her part remained inexorable. The bathing over the relations laid the corpse on the bier and carried it to the cremation ground and placing it there they piled on the stacks of firewood and cowdung cakes, when the wife under the pretence of seeing her husband for the last time went near him and said gently in his ear: "Now consent and say one and a half."
"No. Say two and a half," retorted he.
The next moment the pile was lit, when the dead man broke loose from the pyre, and exclaimed in a loud distracted tone: - "I consent, I consent. One and a half."
The people were frightened out of their wits, but when they came to know the story they laughed heartily and went to their homes. The miser also returned home with his wife, and henceforward divided the cakes equally.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
195
DEDICATORY NECKLACES.
IN the country lying in Lat. 30° 15′ N., and song. 73° 30' E., when a Muhammadan male child is born he is dedicated to Pir-i-Dastagir ['Abdu'l Qadir Jilani], for 6, 9, or 12 years. .On his completing his first year a silver necklace, somewhat lighter than a Norse torque, is put on his neck, and another is added on the completion of each year up to the termination of the dedicatory period, when all the necklaces are taken off and presented at the shrine of Pir-i-Dastagir. I have seen children wearing as many as seven of these necklaces, the state of the skin of the neck proving that they had never been taken off. Should the child die the necklaces are reserved for other possible children,
M. MILLETT in P. N. and Q. 1883. SOME INDIAN MUSALMAN BIRTH CUSTOMS. So long as the mother is confined to her bed a barber's wife (ndin) cooks the food of the whole family in the presence of the women, and during the seven days of defilement the nurse and her husband supplies the water, and a brother's wife the earthen vessels required. But this last custom exists only in the villages, and does not extend to the large towns and cities. During the whole term of the confinement the Hinduized Musalmans will give nothing away out of the house -not even fire - nor will they allow the 1ouse sweepings to be thrown outside, nor is any woman, except one of their own caste, allowed to enter the house,
GULAR SINGH in P. N. and Q. 1883.
SOME BIRTH CUSTOM IN BIHAR
IN Bihar, when a child is born whose elder brothers have died, and who is hence called maráchh or marâchh'wd, the navel cord is thrown away. But if he is an ordinary child, whose
brothers and sisters are alive, a portion is cut off and buried in the floor of the lying-inchamber; over it the lying-in-fire, pasanght, is lighted. This fire is kept in all cases burning night and day, till the mother leaves the chamber.
G. A. GRIERSON in P. N. and Q. 1883.
KHWAJA KHIZAR AND HIS AFFINITIES. WANTED: the various names of this god of the flood. The common ones are Khwaja Khizar, identified with Ilyâs (Elias); Khwaja Khâsâ; Durmindr; Dumindo; Jindâ Pir. See Trumpp, Adi Granth, xxiv. Compare also the Russian myth of the Vodyany or water-sprite being mixed up with Ilya (Elijah), who Ralston says, Songs of the Russian People, 2nd ed., p. 152, is properly Perun, the Slavonic Thunder God.
R. C. TEMPLE.
CEREMONIAL COLORS.
ARE there any instances known among the nonAryan tribes of India or Burma of particular colors being associated with the various directions or points of the compass? The colors may be used in ceremonials, or may be referred to in myth or story, as in the case of Mt. Meru in Aryan mythology with its four sides of different colors.
If so, what reasons, if any, are given for the selection of the colors ? And what is the general symbolic significance of the colors so used? If, for example, red is used as symbolic of some point of the compass, is red in its general symbolism connected with heat, or with war. or with anything else?
If green, blue or black are used symbolically of any of the directions, do the people have any knowledge of the sea; and what color do they use in describing it ?
