PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 81 



Joseph, was thrown, is situate in the high road 

 between Sialkot and Kalowal. His residence in it 

 sanctified it to such an extent that the women of those 

 parts believe that if they bathe in it they will become 

 fruitful. 1 " In a well in Orissa the priests throw betel- 

 nuts into the mud, and barren women scramble for 

 them. Those who find them will have their desire for 

 children gratified before long. " 2 Here again magic 

 is dwindling into divination. Indian women some- 

 times, as we have seen, adopt more questionable 

 means : the following examples may be added to those 

 already mentioned. They wash naked in a boat in a 

 field of sugar-canes, or under a fruiting mango-tree. 3 

 Mangoes, it will be remembered, are favourite fruits 

 for obtaining issue in Indian tales. According to 

 another prescription the patient should begin by 

 burning down seven houses. But English law is 

 unsympathetic to this procedure ; and women have to 

 content themselves with burning secretly at midnight 

 on Sunday under a cloudless sky, and if possible at a 

 cross-road, a little grass from the thatch of seven 

 dwellings. At this fire they heat the water wherein to 

 bathe. 4 Or on a Sunday or Tuesday night or during 

 the Diwali festival the woman sits on a stool, which is 

 then lowered down a well. She there strips and 

 bathes, and being drawn up again performs the chauk- 

 purna ceremony with incantations taught by a wizard. 

 If there be any difficulty about descending a well, it 

 seems she may perform the ceremony beneath a pipal- 



1 Leg. Panj. i. 2. 



2 Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 50, citing Ball, Jungle Life in India. 



3 Pan/. (Indian) N. and Q. iv. no (par. 425). 



* Ibid. i. 15 (par. 125); 63 (par. 527); 100 (par. 770) ; ii. 185 

 (par. 981) ; iii. 98 (par. 447) ; N. Jnd. N. and Q. i. 50 (par. 372). 



