quails and other birds. They return and cook the game before the
shrine of the god and offer to him a fowl and a pig. A pit is dug
and water poured into it, and a person from each house must stand
in the mud. A little seed taken from each house is also soaked in
the mud, and after the feast is over this is taken and returned to
the householder with words of abuse, a small present of two or three
pice being received from him. The seed is no doubt thus consecrated
for the next sowing. The tribe also have joint ceremonial fishing
excursions. Their ideas of a future life are very vague, and they
have no belief in a place of reward or punishment after death. They
propitiate the spirits of their ancestors on the 15th of Asarh (June)
with offerings of a little rice and incense.

8. Superstitious remedies.

To cure the evil eye they place a little gunpowder in water and
apply it to the sufferer's eyes, the idea perhaps being that the
fiery glance from the evil eye which struck him is quenched like the
gunpowder. To bring on rain they perform a frog marriage, tying two
frogs to a pestle and pouring oil and turmeric over them as in a real
marriage. The children carry them round begging from door to door and
finally deposit them in water. They say that when rain falls and the
sun shines together the jackals are being married. Formerly a woman
suspected of being a witch was tied up in a bag and thrown into a
river or tank at various places set apart for the purpose. If she
sank she was held to be innocent, and if she floated, guilty. In the
latter case she had to defile herself by taking the bone of a cow
and the tail of a pig in her mouth, and it was supposed that this
drove out the magic-working spirit. In the case of illness of their
children or cattle, or the failure of crops, they consult the Pujari
or priest and make an offering. He applies some flowers or grains of
rice to the forehead of the deity, and when one of these falls down
he diagnoses from it the nature of the illness, and gives it to the
sufferer to wear as a charm.

9. Occupation.

The tribe are cultivators and farmservants, and practise shifting
cultivation. They work as village watchmen and also as the Majhi or
village headman and the Pujari or village priest. These officials
are paid by contributions of grain from the cultivators. And as
already seen, the Bhatras are employed as household servants and
will clean cooking-vessels. Since they act