310 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [Sept., 1915,} 
pestle, jestingly exclaiming: ‘‘If you prove covetous, if you 
prove a thief, you will be thus beaten with a pestle.’’' This 
custom of sprinkling the bridegroom with water by means of 
mango-twigs is alluded to in a Manda folk-song wherein a 
Miinda youth, bidding defiance to all social restrictions, says :— 
«‘ For a bride I shall seek where affection will lead, 
My wishes alone the sole guide that I know 
No sprinkling of water with mango-twigs I'll rede, 
Nor mark of vermilion over my brow.’’? 
This practice of performing the lustration with mango- 
twigs is also resorted to on other ceremonial occasions, as will 
appear from the following:—In the Minda legend of Lutkum 
Haram and Lutkum Buria, it is stated that the Asirs led the 
Tord Kora towards their furnaces to offer him up as a sacrifice 
to appease Sing Bonga. The Térd Kora had already given 
directions as to the proper mode of the sacrifice. ‘Two 
virgins,’’ he had said, ‘‘ who will have fasted for three days 
and nights shall work the furnaces with bellows newly made of 
white goat-skin and furnished with new bellow-handles and a 
new bellow-nozzle. By day and by night must the bellows be 
d 
then put out the fire. And the water shall be carried in new 
earthen pitchers on head-cushions made of cotton-thread.’”* 
_ (6). The waving of the hands over the affected partis closely 
allied to the Wave-Ceremony which is based on the idea that 
baleful influences exercised by them. I think that the medi- 
cine-man, by waving his hands over that part of the patient § 
body which has been stung by the scorpion, expels the poison 
ous effects of its sting.* 
en 
: Op. we P- 446. A 2 Op. cit., p. 517. 
-» Pp. Xxxiii (Appendix IT). ; 
* For further illustrations of Wave-Ceremony, 8° at 
the 
Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern cen 
(Allahabad Edition of 1894). P. 199. 
