1851.] Notes upon a Tour through the Rdjmahal Hills. 553 



Children being the Sonthals' great pride, comfort and assistance, are 

 not forgotten in their short prayer. Sonthals in general have large 

 families, averaging perhaps eight children to each couple ; the male 

 children plough, herd the cattle, reap the harvest, build and repair the 

 family houses, make the carts and ploughs ; distil the spirit Pachui 

 from rice, and perform all out-door work ; whilst the female children 

 husk the junera and rice ; express oil from the mustard seed, cook the 

 household food, attend the markets when near one, look after the 

 poultry, pigs, goats, and pigeons ; and when the parents are old and 

 infirm the children become their support. 



Almost all nations on earth, savage or civilized, appear to have an 

 intuitive feeling or knowledge, that blood is required to be shed for the 

 propitiation of sins ; nor do we find the Sonthtil ignorant of the fact, 

 and in order to propitiate the invisible spirit they freely sacrifice the 

 buffalo, pig, goat and poultry, the blood of which animals is sprinkled 

 over the offerings made by the worshippers. 



Outside every Sonthal village a spot is set apart for offering up 

 sacrifices which are made at all times of the year and by any one hav- 

 ing a request to make of the invisible spirit ; the spot selected is gene- 

 rally a small patch of Sakua jungle that has been spared when the 

 forest was removed from the neighbourhood of the village, in this 

 secluded grove small stones are set up at the foot of the trees and 

 besmeared with red paint, and generally two upright sticks are stuck 

 in the earth connected by a horizontal one, under or near this group 

 of sticks the victims are slain with a sword, and the blood sprinkled 

 upon the offerings that have been placed under the bar on the ground 

 by the villagers ; the offerings consisting of small conical-shaped leaf 

 bowls or cups filled with either rice, junera, or Indian corn, mixed with 

 milk, ghee, spirits or water. The flesh of the victims is eaten by those 

 invited to the feast, which is invariably more or less a scene of de- 

 bauchery terminating in a wild and most extraordinary dance A very 

 extensive dance which I witnessed in the hills took place by torch 

 light at midnight during the month of April, at which about five thou- 

 sand Sonthals were present, these dances are performed both by night 

 and by day ; at the present one about four hundred women danced at 

 the same time. 



A lofty stage is erected in an open plain upon which a few men 



4 B 



