THE BHOTIAS OF ALMORA AND BRITISH GARHWAL. Ill 



basket {doka) full of these balls on her back, and it is curious to note that the basket is 

 tied by the very same am lugara, or white cloth, by which the corpse was led to the pyre. 



From this day onwards up to the dhurung ceremony, all singing is stopped among 

 relations, and men may not wear a turban, or a ring on the right ear (the left is immune), 

 nor may they shave, or crop the head ; similarly the girls, who are related to the deceased 

 have to eschew rings on the right hand, and allow two frontal hair-plaits (tzi) to hang 

 down on each side of the face, and sometimes they go the length of putting off all jewellery 

 for three years with the exception of a coral wreath and a bracelet. Should the deceased 

 have died far from home, they are anxious to ensure the spirit finding its way across diffi- 

 cult places on the route, and, therefore, when returning home, they lay a thread of wool on 

 the ground to guide the spirit of the deceased. In Chaudans this custom has been given 

 up. 



If the deceased has succumbed to some infectious disease such as smallpox, or 

 cholera, the corpse is not burnt, but buried, or is thrown into the water, and in this case 

 no bone is retained except a tooth to be put in the place of dead men's bones. Such a 

 horror have they of leprosy, that if the deceased has been a victim to this dread disease, 

 they simply cast the corpse into the water and retain nothing, not even a tooth. 



The distribution of rice-balls to the villagers is an important ceremony, and should 

 the death have occurred at a distance from home they make a point of performing it on 

 their return. 



In pattis Byans and Chaudans cremation follows death immediately, but in patti 

 Darma burning takes place only in the month of Kartik, and the corpses are interred 

 in the ground during the interval and are exhumed in Kartik for cremation. This is a 

 filthy and most insanitary practice. 



Dhurung or Giuan. — The Bhotias of Pargana Darma all speak of the funeral ceremo- 

 nies as gwan, and these rites are still found among certain Bhotias near Jumla in Nepal, 

 who are said to have migrated from patti Byans. They were undoubtedty practised in the 

 past by all Bhotias in Johar and Niti and Mana, but at the present time the Rajputs have 

 entirely abandoned the custom, which is only followed in those parts by the Domra Bhotias, 

 and as the people of those parts have also forgotten the Bhotia language they have applied 

 the hill-word dhurung to what is universally known as gwan in the Bhotia language. 

 The origin of these rites and the practice of cremation is prettily told in the common 

 story which all Bhotias tell : An old man in days long gone by, when the world was 

 young, lost his only son, and in his agony of grief determined to go even unto heaven to 

 plead for the life that had been taken from him at the feet of Miyar Misru {Miyar means 

 heaven ) the god omnipotent, creator of all things. He arrived in time to see that 

 Misru s own son, his only son, had just died also, and he witnessed the cremation and 

 other ceremonies that were done in heaven, and Misru told him that when death did not 

 spare him the omnipotent what could he do to assist terrestrials. Returning to earth the 

 old man taught the Bhotias all that he had seen, and henceforth they followed the 

 heavenly ritual, only substituting stone for gold in the cremation enclosure (rhapa), wood 

 for silver in the bier, and wood for silver in the fuel of the pyre. 



In Byans and Chaudans there is only one gwan ceremony for the deceased, and it 



