230 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



we are told that among the Mohammedans in Oudh if 

 a barren woman on a Sunday or a Tuesday tear off and 

 swallow a piece of the wrapper of a fruitful woman it will 

 cause her to conceive, but the other woman " considers 

 the act as an ill omen " for herself. 1 In Guzerat it is 

 clear that the intention is to transfer the child from one 

 womb to the other ; and although the practice in 

 Oudh is described more vaguely we must interpret it to 

 the same effect. This view is strengthened by the belief 

 that when a child's shirt was steeped in water and the 

 water drunk by a barren woman the child would die 

 and be born again from the woman who had drunk the 

 water, and by the general requirement in India that 

 when, as often happens, a child is put to death for the 

 purpose of securing offspring to a barren woman, that 

 child must be a boy. "In the reported cases," says Mr. 

 Rose, " there is only one in which the victim was a girl, 

 and in that the parties concerned were Mohammedan 

 fakirs. 2 The child's vitality is usually tested by torture 

 previously to the final blow. Branding with hot metal 

 is the favourite process ; and having regard to the 

 attitude taken by English magistrates to this ritual 

 murder, the secret branding of a child unable to speak, 

 and therefore to betray the torturer, is often held to 

 satisfy the necessities of the case without murder. 3 



1 N. Ind. N. and Q. in. 215 (par. 467) ; iv. 161 (par. 373). 



2 Census of Ind. (1901), xvii. 214. 



3 N. Ind. N. and Q. i. 148 (par. 911) ; Daya, 90. I think the 

 interpretation I have given of the torture is correct, though both 

 that and the requirement of a bronze knife for actual despatch 

 mentioned by Mr. Rose may point to confusion with the idea of a 

 sacrifice. In any case, one kind of ritual murder, probably of 

 late development, is the offering of human sacrifices to the gods for 

 offspring. Professor Westermarck has collected a number of 

 instances from various parts of the world which raise the suspicion 



