ge or other
domestic festivals. After he has received the usual courtesies he
produces the Wai, a book written in his own crabbed hieroglyphics
or in those of his father, which contains the descent of the house
from its founder, interspersed with many a verse or ballad, the dark
sayings contained in which are chanted forth in musical cadence to
a delighted audience, and are then orally interpreted by the bard
with many an illustrative anecdote or tale. The Wai, however, is not
merely a source for the gratification of family pride or even of love
of song; it is also a record by which questions of relationship are
determined when a marriage is in prospect, and disputes relating to the
division of ancestral property are decided, intricate as these last
necessarily are from the practice of polygamy and the rule that all
the sons of a family are entitled to a share. It is the duty of the
bard at each periodical visit to register the births, marriages and
deaths which have taken place in the family since his last circuit,
as well as to chronicle all the other events worthy of remark which
have occurred to affect the fortunes of his patron; nor have we ever
heard even a doubt suggested regarding the accurate, much less the
honest fulfilment of this duty by the bard. The manners of the bardic
tribe are very similar to those of their Rajput clients; their dress
is nearly the same, but the bard seldom appears without the _katar_
or dagger, a representation of which is scrawled beside his signature,
and often rudely engraved upon his monumental stone, in evidence of
his death in the sacred duty of _traga_ (suicide)." [290]

7. Their extortionate practices.

The Bhat thus fulfilled a most useful function as registrar of births
and marriages. But his merits were soon eclipsed by the evils produced
by his custom of extolling liberal patrons and satirising those who
gave inadequately. The desire of the Rajputs to be handed down to fame
in the Bhat's songs was such that no extravagance was spared to satisfy
him. Chand, the great Rajput bard, sang of the marriage of Prithwi Raj,
king of Delhi, that the bride's father emptied his coffers in gifts,
but he filled them with the praises of mankind. A lakh of rupees
[291] was given to the chief bard, and this became a precedent for
similar occasions. "Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled,"
Colonel Tod wrote, [292] "and the aristocratic Rajputs submit to
republican simplicity,