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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
and the crimes they commit are horrible to describe. The cases of infanticide are so numerous in such communities, that, if careful and stringent enquiry were to be made, the result would be most horrible and terrible. The root and cause of all this catastrophe is the prevailing custom of Kanaya-Vikraya, sale of girls in marriage by their parents. A girl amongst such communities is considered to be an article of trade, viewed by the parents as a price-fetching jewel, by the brokers or mediators as a commodity for speculation, and by the buyers as a thing handy and at the command of their money. Can we not safely attribute the emaciated condition, unhealthy constitution, and premature deaths to this glaring evil, observed in various communities in which this cruel, immoral, and inhumane practice of selling girls in marriage, without the least consideration being paid to the equality of age, is prevalent ?
DESTEMALS, SGARDERBERAL, &c.
IN Mandelslo's Travels (1638), speaking of Pâtan in North Gujarât, we read,The city of Pettan was formerly more than six leagues in circumference, and was defended by a good freestone wall, which is now ruined in many places since the trade began to fall away. The inhabitants are for the most part Benjans, and are engaged in making silk-stuffs for home use, and cotton cloths, but these are coarse, and only such as are called Destemals, sgarderberal, longis,
Allegiens, &c.'
The translation of this passage in Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels (fol. Lond. 1744), Vol. I, p. 765, is very slip-shod, and omits altogether the names of the cloths. Col. Yule does not seem to have used Mandelslö; but longis is simply long-cloth (loongi),-can any one identify and describe destemals, agarderberal, and Allegiens ? Alleja is, perhaps, the same as Allegiens (Yule, p. 756).
In Van Twist's Generale Beschrijvinge var Indien (Amsterdam, 1648), p. 16, the same statement occurs in Dutch: indeed, Wicquefort and Ogilby seem both to have copied from this work, which is valuable for the information it affords respecting Gujarât in the early part of the 17th century. There we read "De Inwonders haer gheneerende met het maeeken van alderley syde Hoffen; . . mede vallen hier schoone Pettolen ofte syde Chindes, mitsgaders eenighe groove lijnwaten, als Oestemaels ofte neusdoee
.
1 A world-wide superstition. In the Hebrides a child born with a tooth, or which out its first tooth in the upper
[OCTOBER, 1902.
ken,.. Tulbanden, Sgaderberael, Longis, Allegiens, &c."
Here we have Oestemaels or 'handkerchiefs' where Wicquefort has Destemals-evidently for the Hindustâni Dastmal; and Tulbanden is turbans,'-but Sgaderberael is unexplained.
J. BURGESS.
Edinburgh, 6th March 1902.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SUTHRA SHAHIS. THE story goes:-A boy was born with its teeth already cut and its parents exposed it, as a child so born is unlucky. The tenth Gurû of the Sikhs, Hargobind, happened to find the child, and told his disciples to take it up, but they refused, saying it was kuthrâ, or dirty. The Gurú replied it was suthra, or clean, and they then obeyed. This boy was the founder of the Suthra Shahi Sect.
This story is noteworthy as showing how unlucky children were exposed, or possibly given to faqirs. The poet Tulsi Dâs was born in Abhukta-mála, at the end of the asterism Jyêshtha and in the beginning of that of Mala, and he was in consequence abandoned and probably picked up by sidhús. The Jôgis, according to one legend, originated in a similar way. For another instance in Kumaon Folk-Lore, ef. Saturday Review, May 12th, 1877 (North Indian Notes and Queries, III. p. 30). It would be interesting to know how far the various sects of faqirs are recruited from unlucky children, or from children vowed to the gods.
The above notes suggest a point for enquiry. Are unlucky children devoted to the gods? If so, is a child born under particular circumstances devoted to a particular deity? For example, would a child born with its teeth already cut be ipso facto dedicated to any special deity or in the Panjab to theSuthrâ Shahi Sect? The Panjabi custom of giving an unlucky child to a Brahman and then buying it back again may have originated in this way.
Further, is there any custom by which children are vowed to a deity, or to (what perhaps comes to the same thing) the sect of faqirs or devotees who worship that deity? There is one wellknown instance of such a custom in the Panjab according to the received explanation. But is the custom general ?
H. A. ROSE,
Superintendent of Ethnography, Punjab. 22nd April 1902.
jaw, will be a bard. Folk-Lore, March, 1902, page 32. 2 Ante, Vol. XXII. p. 265.
