Dr Kennedy on the Indian Penance of Gulwugty. 47 



of oil ; this being dried off with sand, another friction equally 

 violent took place with soap scraped into such thin fragments 

 as powdered and disappeared under the hand. This being; 

 again dried with sand, the operator's principal assistant, sitting 

 on the patient's shoulders, commenced with his heels a process 

 of kneading, jerking, and working the integuments over the 

 loins, so as to loosen or slacken them, with a roughness of ma- 

 nual but completeness of success that, as I have already said, 

 struck me with astonishment. This being done, or rather in 

 the intervals of this process, the operator continued gathering 

 up by little and little a fold of the integuments in his left hand, 

 as would raise up the skin for the introduction of a seton, and 

 when he had mastered as much as he could with his utmost 

 exertion force up, he then shoved his hook slowly and deliber- 

 ately through it, always directing the point outwards. One 

 hook being fixed, the other was speedily introduced on the op- 

 posite side in the same manner, the operation of fixing both 

 taking generally about three or five minutes, depending upon 

 the muscularity of the subject. After the patient had swung 

 to his own content he was taken down by the cross pole being 

 lowered nearly to the ground, from the weights at the opposite 

 end removing from the scale ; then being laid flat on the ground 

 the hooks were drawn forth, but without the least precaution 

 to save pain. I did not observe a single instance of the skin 

 having yielded or being rent. The appearance was invariably 

 four wounds in"a straight line, thus, o o o o^ the two made by 

 one hook being always four and sometimes five inches apart 

 from each other. The curative process was simplicity itself. 

 The principal assistant again seated himself on the patient's 

 shoulders, and applying his heels to the wounded parts labour- 

 ed to squeeze out any blood or lymph that might be extrava- 

 sated. One operator sucked the wounds, and another applied 

 a kind of dry poultice of cow-dung and turmeric, the Hindoo 

 specific for every shock that " flesh is heir to." The sufferer's 

 kumur-bund (girdle) supplied the bandage, which was tightly 

 applied round his loins, and he forthwith joined in the cere- 

 mony of swinging his comrades, as alert and unconcerned to 

 appearance, as if the whole he had undergone were but a jest. 

 I had an opportunity of examining daily, until their perfect 



