42 Migratory Tribes of 



At the period of adolescence, however, the young men and 

 women are perfect models for the sculptor, the plumpness of 

 that age rounding off the form, and hiding the projecting bones 

 and the hollows between the muscles, which, in after life, the 

 profession that both sexes follow too prominently develop. 

 They are " Athletae ;'* and the boys and girls are trained to the 

 most surprising feats of agility from their earhest infancy. 

 Besides this, which is their ostensible mode of gaining a liveli- 

 hood, the men of this wandering people earn sums of money 

 by exorcising demons from the persons of those they possess ;* 

 but what they most trust to for support is devoting their female 

 relatives to the gods. 



The various castes of Hindus have their various gods, at 

 whose shrines the children are devoted ; but the god of this 

 Bhatoo is Kandoba,t in the village of Jeejoorie, near Poena. 

 About the age of five they carry their female relations there, 

 and after performing sacrifice, and burning frankincense, they 

 lay the girl at the feet of the deity, to which she is now con- 

 sidered married. These devoted women, and all the male 

 children, are regularly trained to athletic exercises, and the 

 community wanders from village to village to exhibit. Most 

 of their feats are performed by means of a bamboo. On the 

 morning of the day they intend exhibiting, they abstain from 

 all food, and to this rule they attribute much of their freedom 

 from disease ; and my informant, an old man sixty years of age, 

 can recollect no instance of rupture among them. Before his 

 own eyes, however, he has seen four people killed by falls from 

 the bamboo, innumerable injuries sustained by others, and he 

 himself has his right elbow joint fearfully crushed. 



They settle unimportant points among themselves by arbi- 

 tration, but all serious matters are brought for the decision of 



* Insane people are frequently taken to have the demon cast forth to these 

 people, and are occasionally placed in a cleft of a tree, — these, of course, are not 

 benefitted by the processes, but demons are frequently cast out of people who had 

 no demons in them. 



t An incarnation of Mahadeva. 



