28 Annual Addreftfi. [Feb. 



he will collate and oxnmiiip as soon as lie can find time to do so. The 

 example is one that might be followed with advantage. In Tndia, as 

 in Europe, the great object of enquiries such as the circular suggests 

 is to preserve and record those unwritten legends, superstitions, and 

 traditions, the memory of which fades as popular education spreads. 

 There is a certain fitness in employing the Ouru Mahdsaya to preserve 

 that which it is his official function to destroy, and he has unrivalled 

 opportunities for procuring exactly the information which we want. 



Mr. Friend-Pereira's translations of some Khond (Kandh) songs 

 enshrine some curious fragments of history and superstition which 

 in a generation or two will probably have been forgotten. Passing by 

 the lover's entreaty that the girl he is courting will ' gladden his liver 

 by moving her body in the dance,' which recalls Horace's moral counsel 

 ^^ Non ancilla tuum jecur ulceret ulla, puerve'' we find a reference to the 

 Pans, the helots of the Kandhs, who worked for them as weavers, and 

 furnished the Meriali who was sacrificed to ensure good crops and 

 general prosperity. The hymn to the earth god, which follows, is a 

 revised version of an earlier and more ghastly hymn in which the 

 human victim was apostrophised by the worshippers. It refers, however, 

 to the original practice and its abolition by the " saheh sons " and 

 ^^ fath&n sons," the latter being probably Muhammadan sepojs em- 

 ployed on the suppression of human sacrifice, and it seems probable 

 enough that the verses describing the magical effect of the tears and 

 blood of the victim may have been simply passed on from the earlier 

 hymn. 



" Thou hast come, thou hast come, curved-horn buffalo : 

 To thy death thou hast come. 



***** 



At present through fear of the saheh sons 



From thy shoulder we take the flesh ; 



Through fear of the pathdn sons 



From thy cheek we take the flesh. 



In the country of former times 



We used to bury a human being. 



Do not cry out to me, beautiful buffalo ; 



Do not cry out to me, ourved-horn buffnlo. 



As the tears streams from thine ejes, 



So may the rain pour down in Asdr ; 



As the mucus trickles from thy nostrils, 



So may it drizzle at intervals ; 



As thy blood gushes forth. 



So may the vegetation sprout ; 



