206 



Statistical Report on the Northern and [No. 38, 



returns to the paternal roof: for three days after the birth of the 

 infant, no food is given to the mother, but she then receives some 

 rice : from its birth the child is daily dosed with Castor oil, a me- 

 dicine which is never given to adults by Native practitioners. On 

 the sixth day it is bathed in an infusion of neem leaves. On the 

 tenth day the midwife takes her leave, when a dinner is given to 

 celebrate the cradling of the infant : on the twelfth day the mother 

 is permitted to go about. In delivering the women, much med- 

 dlesome midwifery is practised, often leading to results the most 

 fatal to parent and child : in what are popularly called cross births, 

 the lives of both are sacrificed by the barbarous and reckless 

 practice of the ignorant midwives : as soon as the child is brought 

 into the world the head is squeezed to give it a proper shape, and a 

 tight bandage is wound round its abdomen. 



Funerals. — Funerals are attended with little expense, increma- 

 tion costs little, the clothes of the deceased, the wood, and ghee, 

 being all that are expended : the price of these may be covered by 

 three or four rupees : the richer classes are burnt with sandal wood, 

 and spices, in which case a greater outlay is incurred. The chil- 

 dren of Brahmins who have not been invested with the sacerdotal 

 thread, which they never are, till they have attained the age of five 

 years, are buried. All Lingayets, and Jungums are interred with 

 the peculiar ceremonies of their caste : Sunnyassi Brahmins, Sata- 

 nies, and religious mendicants generally are buried, as are many of 

 the lowest castes. 



Religion. — Some account was given in my former report of the 

 prevalent religious observances. The worship of the Saktis is 

 very common, the Sunkerachary Brahmins condescending to act as 

 priests at the more celebrated, or in other words the better paying 

 temples, but with the exception of swinging with the hook before 

 the deities which is very frequent throughout Telinganah, there 

 are none of those atrocious, and abominable usages of worship that 

 are practised by the left hand castes of Mysore, and other parts of 

 India. This may be owing to the long establishment of the Ma- 

 homedan Government, which, bad as it often is, proscribes such 

 overt and shameless abominations. There is much reason for be- 

 lieving that under the form, and with the attributes of a capricious 

 and cruel female, the evil principle was propitiated in these parts 

 long before the introduction of the brahminical faith, and that it 



