him with knives and hacked the flesh from the
bones. Sometimes he was cut up alive. Another
very common mode was to fasten the victim to the
proboscis of a wooden elephant, which revolved
on a stout post, and as it whirled round the crowd
cut the flesh off while life remained. In some
villages as many as fourteen of these wooden
elephants were found, all of which had been used for
this purpose. In one district the victim was put
to death slowly by fire. A low stage was erected,
sloping on each side like a roof; upon this the
victim was placed, his limbs wound about with cords
to prevent his escape. Fires were then lighted and
hot brands applied to make him roll up and down
the slopes of the stage as much as possible, for
the more tears he shed the more abundant would be
the supply of rain. The next day the body was
cut to pieces. The flesh was at once taken home
by delegates of the villages. To secure its rapid
arrival it was sometimes forwarded by relays of men,
and conveyed with postal fleetness fifty or sixty
miles. In each village all who had remained at
home fasted until the flesh arrived. When it came
it was divided into two portions, one of which was
offered to the Earth Goddess by burying it in a hole
in the ground. The other portion was divided into
as many shares as there were heads of houses
present. Each head of a house rolled his share in
leaves and buried it in his favourite field. In some
places each man carried his portion of flesh to the
stream that watered his fields.
Since the British Government has suppressed the
