206 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



a child's name. The priest drops grains of rice into 

 a cup of water, naming with each grain adeceased 

 ancestor. From the movements of the seed in the 

 fluid and from observ ations made on the infant's 

 person, he pronounces which? of the progenitors has 

 reappeared in it ; and the babe is usually named 

 accordingly. Khond psychology endows every one 

 with four souls. Out of such a company there is no 

 difficulty in arranging that one of them shall be 

 attached to some tribe and perpetually born again into 

 it. This in fact is what is believed to happen. 1 The 

 Kols, a Dravidian people found in considerable 

 numbers along the Vindhya fKaimur plateau, also 

 practise this divination ; and the child is generally 

 named after some deceased ancestor, who has thus 

 returned from the region of the dead. 2 



Among the Korwa, a]Dravidian tribe inhabiting the 

 part of Mirzapur south of the river Son and along the 

 frontier of Sarguja, "the child is named by the father 

 or grandfather, and is generally called after some 

 deceased ancestor, who is understood from a dream to 

 be re-born in the baby." 3 The Bhuiyars say that the 

 dead man's soul is first judged by Paramesar. If he 

 be pronounced good, he is born again as a boy or girl 

 in the same family. Similar beliefs are held by the 

 Kharwars and Pankas. 4 The Pataris hold that the 



1 Macpherson, Memorials, 72, 92, 134. 



2 Crooke, Tribes and Castes, iii. 308; Hahn, Kolsmission, 72, 

 105. According to Dalton the Kols of Bengal perform a similar 

 ceremony without the same belief (Dalton, 295). But the belief 

 as the origin of the ceremony must be inferred. See below (p. 207) 

 as to the Kafirs of the Hmdu-Kush. 



8 Crooke, op. cit. 330. 



4 N. Ind. N. and Q. i. 70 (par. 482). 



