ABORS AND GALONGS. 07 



oner. To buy back his liberty the men offered the gods fowls and pigs and mithan 

 taking their offerings to the mountains, the dwelling-places of the gods. These offer- 

 ing the gods said they would accept for the man and the people returned to their 

 homes. But in the evening, instead of the man who had been a prisoner, the fowls 

 and pigs and mithan came wandering back to the homesteads. Again the offerings 

 were taken up to the gods and again their gifts returned to them ; and the gods 

 remained angry and held the man a prisoner. So the men went up a third time and 

 said to the gods, " We have given you, twice, those things that you asked, but each 

 " time you have driven them back to us, and still you will not release our brother." 

 And the gods said, :c How can we give you back your brother, your offerings do not 

 ' f come to us— they go straight back to you. So we cannot set our prisoner free." 

 Then the men said to the gods, " If what we give to you we give with life, then of a 

 ' f truth it returns to us, so we will kill the offerings that the spirit may go to you and 

 " return to us no more." So the first sacrifices were made, and the captive was res- 

 tored. And from that day the spirit of the creature sacrificed has, in death, gone out 

 to the gods. 



The present-day religion of the hill-tribes is polydemonism. The different 



peoples propitiate the malevolent spirits that deal sickness 



Nature of present-day religion. 



and death by dissimilar rites, and call the spirits of air, 

 earth and water by various names. But the underlying fear is the same and bears a 

 striking resemblance to the old belief that still exists under the veneer of Buddhism 

 in Tibet.' Propitiation, to avert the anger of some demon, is the keynote of their 

 religion and these propitiatory rites accordingly play a prominent part in their lives. 

 There is, however, an undoubted belief in a great and benevolent spirit who is all 

 powerful. A most interesting feature of the hill man's faith is his comprehensive 

 belief in a future state. The religion and customs of the Akas are not unlike those of 

 their eastern neighbours, but the influence of Tibet is, naturally, more apparent. 

 Owing to the widespread publicity obtained during 191 1 in the public press for a series 

 of accounts relating to the manners and customs of the Abors, it is thought neces- 

 sary to refer here to the specific statement that " totemism and fetish have their 

 counterpart in the Abor hills." A careful investigation of the subject shows the 

 possibility that certain acts of taboo may be the surviving traces of totemism that 

 once existed, and that the exogamy that is still observed may originally have been 

 due to a similar cause. Moreover Tani's matrimonial experiences amongst the 

 lower orders of creation might be held to give the faintest possible encouragement 

 to the theory of earlier totemic belief. But no further conclusion seems warranted. 

 Fetishism does not possess even this slender basis of fact. Beyond a quite ordinary 

 use of charms and one curious and little-known rite that appears to be peculiar to 

 the Mishmis,' 1 nothing that bears even a superficial resemblance to fetishism has 



1 See Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, ch. xviii. 



1 The extraction of the devil of adultery in the form of a tiny bird from the arm-pit of a woman accused of this 

 offence. 



