Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/234

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
208
Miscellanea.

by a dhobi (washerman) very binding. Two subdivisions which do not intermarry. Adoption.

193. Saran District.—Initiation of chclas and mahants.

194. Andajuan Islanders.—Major Temple corrects Sir John Lubbock.

195. Lucky marks on the feet.

244. N.-W. Provinces.—Marriage rites. The barber bathes and dresses the bridegroom; whose robes must be red. Disguise: Bride's mother dresses as bride, priest's wife as bridegroom, and do the ceremony again. Priest's wife gives a new name to the bride, and whispers it into a pot filled with certain kinds of food. Corners of the garments of the wedded pair are tied together. Bridegroom's mother dresses as a man. Red lead and red water used.

246. Taboos among the Pankti Sarwariya Brahmins.

248. Slight trace of mother-right.


Folktales.

A large number of tales, both amusing and interesting (as 31, 32, 35, 72, 76, 78, 143, 145, 146), are not touched upon, because they contain nothing that seems useful for the student.

5. The virtue of Raja Rupa Angad (Mirzapur).—Finding out by chance the potency of the Eleventh Day Fast, he ordered all his subjects to keep it; in consequence, they were all caught up to heaven in a fairy car when their lives were ended, and hell grew empty. Indra was sore afraid lest Rupa by virtue of his piety should take possession of his kingdom [just what Sakka is always thinking in the Jātaka, cp. vol. iv. pp. 8-9], so sent a fairy to tempt him astray She consents to live with him if he will either slay his son or give up the aforesaid fast. Both boy and mother preferred the former alternative; so the Raja cut off his son's head; and just as he was going to eat him, Bhagwān appears ex machina, restores the son to life, protects the king's virtue, and drives the fairy away. [Ed. points out that this is a "tradition of cannibalism among the Mānjhis," the teller being a Mānjhi.]

34. The Metamorphosis of Raja Vikramāditya.—The Raja learnt a charm from a Pundit how to get into a dead body; and he shows it to his servant by entering the body of a parrot. The servant cut up the body (away flew the parrot) and gave himself