once venerated." [706] The hare has still some remnant of
sanctity among the Hindus. Women will not eat its flesh, and men eat
the flesh of wild hares only, not of tame ones. It seems likely that
the hare may have been considered capable of foretelling the future
on account of its long ears. The omen of the donkey was considered
the most important of all, whether it threatened evil or promised
good. It was a maxim of augury that the ass was equal to a hundred
birds, and it was also more important than all other quadrupeds. If
they heard its bray on the left on the opening of an expedition and
it was soon after repeated on the right, they believed that nothing
on earth could prevent their success during that expedition though
it should last for years. The ass is the sacred animal of Sitala,
the goddess of smallpox, who is a form of Kali. The ears and also
the bray of the ass would give it importance.

The noise of two cats heard fighting was propitious only during the
first watch of the night; if heard later in the night it was known
as '_Kali ki mauj_' or 'Kali's temper,' and threatened evil, and if
during the daytime as '_Dhamoni [707] ki mauj_,' and was a prelude
of great misfortune; while if the cats fell from a height while
fighting it was worst of all. The above shows that the cat was also
the animal of Kali and is a point in favour of her derivation from
the tiger; and on this hypothesis the importance of the omen of the
cat is explained. If they obtained a good omen when in company with
travellers they believed that it was a direct order from heaven to
kill them, and that if they disobeyed the sign and let the travellers
go they would never obtain any more victims. [708]

23. Omens and taboos

If a mare dropped a foal in their camp while they were travelling,
they were all contaminated or came under the Itak; and the only remedy
for this was to return home and start the journey afresh. Various other
events [709] also produced the Itak, especially among the Deccan Thugs;
these were the birth of a child in a Thug family; the first courses
of a Thug's daughter; a marriage in a Thug's family; a death of any
member of his family except an infant at the breast; circumcision of
a boy; a buffalo or cow giving calf or dying; and a cat or dog giving
a litter or dying. If a party fell under the Itak or contamination
at a time when it was extremely inconvenient or impossible to return
home, they sometimes marched ba