October i8, 1906] 



NA TURE 



611 



ETHNOLOGY OF SOUTHERN INDIA.' 



THIS book is a reproduction, witli some additions 

 and quotations from published materials, of tlie 

 useful bulletins which the author, as curator of the 

 Madras Museum and director of the Provincial Ethno- 

 graphical Survey, has issued during recent years. 

 The arrangement of the book might be much 

 improved; full references to the authorities should 

 have been given, while a bibliography would assist 

 the student in investigating a mass of unfamiliar 

 literature. Even as it stands, the volume, with its 

 useful collection of photographs, supplies much 

 interesting material. The greater part of it is de- 

 voted to notes on marriage and death customs, and to 

 a miscellaneous group of notes on omens, charms, 

 iTiagic, and the like. It is, as Mr. Thurston calls it, 

 "a farrago," with wliich we can only deal by glean- 

 ing some of the 

 >■ interesting facts which 



abound in its pages. 



Thus in the notes on 

 marriage we find the 

 rite of confarrealio 

 adopted by the Kam- 

 malans of Malabar in 

 the case of polyandrous 

 unions, a fact which 

 we believe to be new 

 to Indian ethnologists. 

 The bride and her pro- 

 spective bridegrooms, 

 who are all brothers, 

 are seated in a row, 

 the eldest on the right, 

 the others in order of 

 seniority, and last of 

 all the bride. The 

 tribal priest solemnises 

 the union by pouring 

 milk into the mouths 

 of all the parties to the 

 contract. Much evi- 

 dence on the subject of 

 fraternal polyandrv i> 

 here collected, but for 

 a scientific treatment 

 of the subject we must 

 await the forthcoming 

 book on the Todas by 

 Dr. Rivers. Numer- 

 ous cases, again, are 

 given of actual or 

 feigned resistance 



offered by the friends 

 1. of the bride to the 

 bridegroom and his 

 party. These are 

 accepted eii hloc as 

 evidence of marriage by capture, which seems 

 unscientific in view of the evidence collected bv 

 Mr. J. G. Frazer to show that many of these 

 mock combats are really intended to promote 

 the fertility of the soil, and are thus by analogy 

 appropriated in the inarriage rites. The hill people 

 of Vizagapatani practise a curious method of select- 

 ing the bride. Near their houses is a pit in which 

 the children are placed at night to keep them warm 

 in the cold season. In spring all the marriageable 

 girls are shut up in one of these pit^, and a young 

 man who has already selected his bride with the 

 consent of his parents comes to the brink and sings 

 out her name. If she likes him she comes out, a fire 



lern India." By E. Tliurston. Pp. 

 irnment Press, 1906.) 



NO. 1929, VOL. 74] 



Fig. I. — Sorcery Figure. F 

 nographic Notes in .South' 

 l,y E. Thursio.i. 



is lighted, and a dance solemnises the union. If she 

 sings back that she will not have him he immediately 

 tries the name of another girl, and goes on doing so 

 until he is successful. 



The chapter on death rites, though badly arranged, 

 abounds in useful information. Madras supplies an 

 admirable field for such investigations, because pre- 

 historic interments are nutnerous, and it would be 

 interesting to compare the usages of the earlier people 

 with those of the present forest tribes. This Mr. 

 Thurston has not attempted to do, but his collection 

 of facts will help European students to undertake the 

 inquiry. 



A good illustration of the theory propounded by 

 Mr. E. S. Hartland at the York meeting of the 

 British .Association — that both magic and religion, in 

 their earliest forms, are based on the conception of a 

 transmissible personality, the Mana of the Melanesian 

 races — is found in the belief that from the eye of a 

 man of low caste a subtle matter proceeds which 

 contaminates food and other things upon which it 

 falls. The most remarkable example of black magic 



\ " Ettlnograpliic Notes i 

 ,i + 53o: 40 plates. (Madr; 



by E. Tlmi. 



is found in the nude figure of a woman, with her feet 

 turned backwards, a large square hole cut above the 

 navel, and the whole body covered with long iron 

 nails and .'\rabic inscriptions, which was washed 

 ashore at Calicut in 1903. This figure, of which the 

 illustration is here reproduced (Fig. i), Mr. Thurston 

 supposes to be that of a woman of the Laccadive 

 Islands who was possessed by an evil spirit, " which 

 was nailed to it before it was cast into the sea." 

 The fact that the feet are turned backwards certainly 

 indicates its demoniacal character, and it seems more 

 probable that it represents some notorious witch; that 

 the nails were driven into it and the mutilation made 

 in order to injure her, and the spells added to destroy 

 her magical power; finally, that the image was cast 

 into the sea as a means of getting rid of the sorceress. 

 The chapter on fi.re walking supplies many facts, 

 but does not help us much to understand the methods 

 and significance of the rite. The question has been 

 discussed by Mr. J. G. Frazer in his recent book on 

 " .Adonis. .Attis. and Osiris." with the result that it 



