The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 2 (of 4)Crooke, William
History
The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 2 (of 4)
Crooke, William
Caste -- India -- History; Hindus -- India; Tribes -- India -- History
practised by people who cannot afford a regular marriage.
[Death ceremonies.] 14. No one is allowed to die in the house. [102]
People who die of cholera and small-pox and unmarried persons are
buried; all others are cremated. They have regular cemeteries in the
neighbourhood of their villages. The corpse is cremated on the edge of
an adjoining stream. Very often, however, cremation is very carelessly
performed, and in epidemics corpses are exposed in the jungle to be
eaten by wild animals. Next day the ashes are collected and floated
away (serwâna) by throwing them into the water. On the third day the
relation who fired the pyre goes with the clansmen to the river, and
they shave one another. That day a date is fixed for the funeral feast,
when they assemble at the house of the deceased, and a little oil and
turmeric are given them, which they rub into their bodies. From the day
of the funeral the women of the family place some food on the road by
which the corpse was removed. [103] This is discontinued from the night
preceding the date of the funeral feast. On that day a cupful of food
and a cup of oil are taken by the oldest woman of the family to the
cremation place and thrown into the water. When she comes home a goat
is sacrificed in the house in the name of the deceased, and in the
evening the clansmen are fed on the flesh of the victim boiled with
rice.
[Ancestor worship.] 15. The souls of the dead, that is to say those of
a dead father and mother, for more distant progenitors are hardly ever
recognized, are feared and require propitiation. If not duly worshipped
they appear in dreams, frighten the sleeper, and sit on his chest and
throat like the nightmare. Most diseases and misfortunes are due to
their displeasure. The annual sacrifice of a goat and fowl is made to
them by the house master in the month of Aghan (November—December).
Poor people who cannot afford a victim wash some rice and pulse and
scatter it in the courtyard in the name of the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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