'215 



History of the Rixtnoossifs. 



[July 



well advanced in vears they prest ive a hale and vigorous appear- 

 ance. 



Their women are also very active and hardy, and many of them, 

 clever and inteliig-ent. It is seldom a Ramoosseen with a very 

 handsome countenance is to be seen ; thev are prohahly in this respect 

 more ill t'lvourod than the men. Yet some of them, are ^ood look- 

 in^:; and possess pleasing features. They exhibit great affection for 

 their otFsprini:, and are considered comparatively good and faithful 

 wives, yet most likely this proceeds more IVom the dread of expe- 

 riencing severe correction * at the hands of their husbands, in case 

 of a dereliction of conjugal duties, than from a sense of the virtuous 

 propriety of such conduct. The women certainly exhibit a greater 

 attachment tor their husbands than the latter do for their wives. 



Thiir children are brought up with the strictest injunctions to 

 secrecy in regard to all that concerns their domestic affairs, and 

 particularly enjoined never to mention to any one the circumstance 

 of having seen a stranger or other person coming into, or departing 

 from their houses, or the cir' umstance of their fathers, uncles, or 

 brothers being absent from home ; most of their boys and girls seem 

 to be very precocious little creatures. Many of them however fall 

 victims to the small pox, when the disease is raging in the country- 

 On the subject of their religion, it is not necessary to say much. 

 The Ramoossies it may be observed, pay their adorations, and pre- 

 sent offerings to the different deities worshipped by the inhabitants 

 of the Dekhan. But their principal object of adoration is Khundy 

 Row or Khundobah, (alias Martinda,) an incarnation of Mhadeva, 

 or the deity personified as the destroyer, or more properly as the 

 regenerator, and represented by the Ling embedded in the Yoni or 

 Salloonka, (the phallic emblem of Greece and Es:ypt.) There are 

 three noted temples dedicated to this god in the Dekhan, one of 

 them is at Jejoory, which is reckoned a place of great sanctity* 

 Although the account 1 have of the place from the Poorans must be 

 of a rather antiquated date. It was only upon the establishment of 

 the Mharata court in its plenitude at Poona, a little before the 

 middle of the last century, that Jejoory it seems became the resort 



* In former days a Ramoosseen who had been guilty af adultery was very 

 cruelly handled, probably her nose was cut off, or she was privately put to 

 death, but much depended on the disposition of her husband, and if her pa* 

 ramour was a man of high caste or otherwise* The Adulterer seldom escap- 

 ed the vengeance of the enraged husband. 



