OF THE INDO-CHINESE NATIONS. 205 



liODOTus positively asserts, tliat the Paday or Padaioi, 

 about oOO years before our a^ra, were^not only addict- 

 ed to the eating of raw flesh, but accustomed to kill 

 and eat their relations when they grew old. Now it 

 is curious that Batta or Batai/j for the name is writ- 

 ten both ways, seems to be the very word wliich, in 

 Greek, is rendered Padaioi, the letter/? being almost al- 

 ways pronounced b among several of the Indo-Chinese 

 nations, as in the word Pali, which is almost always 

 pronounced Bali The following is the account which 

 Herodotus gives us of the Paday, or Padaioi. "Ano- 

 ther Indian nation, who dwell to the eastward or 

 these, (the Indian Ichthyophagi) are of nomadic ha- 

 bits, and eat raw flesh. They are called Paday, and 

 are said to practise such customs as the following. 

 Whoever of the community, be it man or woman, 

 happens to fall sick, his most familiar friends, if it is 

 a man, kill him : saying, that by his pining in sick- 

 ness, his flesh will be spoiled for them ; and though 

 he deny that he is sick, they do not attend to him, 

 but put him to death, and feast on him. When a 

 woman falls sick, she is treated in like manner by 

 her most intimate female associates. They also sa- 

 crifice and feast on him who arrives at old age, and 

 this is the reason that so few of them ever attain it, 

 for they kill every one who falls sick, before that 

 period."* This account of Herodotus certainly cor- 

 responds very minutely with the customs attributed 

 to the Batta race, and renders it probable that this 

 modern nation derive their origin from the ancient 

 Paday or Batay. Neither is it more incredible that 

 the Battas should eat human flesh as a religious cere- 

 mony, than that anthropophagy should be practised 

 by the class of mendicants termed Agorah Punfh, in 



Herodot. Lib. III. s. go. 



