Certain it is, that where cannibalism has been studied in modern times, it has commonly been found to have had originally, a religious basis; and the inference is a fair one, that it must have been the same wherever cannibalism existed in earlier times. Even in some regions where cannibalism has long since been prohibited, there are traditions and traces of its former existence as a purely religious rite. Thus, in India, little images of flour paste or clay, are now made for decapitation, or other mutilation, in the temples,[380] in avowed imitation of human beings, who were once offered and eaten there. Referring to the frequency of human sacrifices in India, in earlier and in later times, and to these emblematic substitutes for them, now employed, the Abbé Dubois says:[381] “In the kingdom of Tanjore there is a village called Tirushankatam Kudi, where a solemn festival is celebrated every year, at which great multitudes of people assemble, each votary bringing with him one of those little images of dough, into the temple, dedicated to Vishnu, and there cutting off the head in honor of that god. This ceremony, which is annually performed with great solemnity, was instituted in commemoration of a famous event which happened in that village. “Two virtuous persons lived there, Sirutenden and his wife Vanagata-ananga, whose faith and piety Vishnu was desirous to prove. He appeared to them, and demanded no other service of them but that of sacrificing, with their own hands, their only and much beloved son Siralen, and _serving up his flesh for a repast_. The parents with heroic courage, surmounting the sentiments and chidings of nature, obeyed without hesitation, and submitted to the pleasure of the god. So illustrious an act of devotion is held worthy of this annual commemoration, at which the sacrifice is emblematically renewed. The same barbarous custom is preserved in many parts of India; and the ardor with which the people engage in it leaves room to suspect that they still regret the times when they would have been at liberty to offer up to their sanguinary gods, the reality, instead of the symbol.” Such a legend as this, taken in conjunction with the custom which perpetuates it, and with all the known history of human sacrifices, in India and elsewhere, furnishes evidence that cannibalism as a religious rite was known to the ancestors of the present dwellers in India. And as it is in the far East, so it is in the far West; and so, also, in mid-ocean.