say that they are looked down upon because they use
wheat-starch (_lapsi_) for smoothing the fibre, and that their name
is somehow derived from this fact. But the explanation does not seem
satisfactory. Many of the country people appear to think that there
is something uncanny about the plant because it grows so quickly,
and they say that on one occasion a cultivator went out to sow hemp
in the morning, and his wife was very late in bringing his dinner to
the field. He grew hungry and angry, and at last the shoots of the
hemp-seeds which he had sown in the morning began to appear above the
ground. At this he was so enraged that when his wife finally came
he said she had kept him waiting so long that the crop had come up
in the meantime, and murdered her. Since then the Hindus have been
forbidden to grow _san_-hemp lest they should lose their tempers in
the same manner. This story makes a somewhat excessive demand on the
hearer's credulity. One probable cause of the taboo seems to be that
the process of soaking and retting the stalks of the plant pollutes
the water, and if carried on in a tank or in the pools of a stream
might destroy the village supply of drinking-water. In former times
it may have been thought that the desecration of their sacred element
was an insult to the deities of rivers and streams, which would bring
down retribution on the offender. It is also the case that the proper
separation of the fibres requires a considerable degree of dexterity
which can only be acquired by practice. Owing to the recent increase in
the price of the fibre and the large profits which can now be obtained
from hemp cultivation, the prejudice against it is gradually breaking
down, and the Gonds, Korkus and lower Hindu castes have waived their
religious scruples and are glad to turn an honest penny by sowing hemp
either on their own account or for hire. Other partially tabooed crops
are turmeric and _al_ or Indian madder (_Morinda citrifolia_), while
onions and garlic are generally eschewed by Hindu cultivators. For
growing turmeric and _al_ special subcastes have been formed, as the
Alia Kunbis and the Hardia Malis and Kachhis (from _haldi_, turmeric),
just as in the case of _san_-hemp. The objection to these two crops is
believed to lie in the fact that the roots which yield the commercial
product have to be boiled, and by this process a number of insects
contained in them are destroyed. But the preparation of the hemp-fibre