grown up. Indeed, they are
treated thus by the whole village. At the appointed time they are
slowly crushed to death or smothered in a mud bath, and bits of their
flesh are then cut out and strewn along the boundary lines. Boys are
preferred, but either boys or girls may be used. This sacrifice is
sometimes made directly to the 'Boundary-god,'[11] an abstraction
which is not unique; for, besides the divinities recorded above,
mention is made also of a 'Judgment-god.' Over each village and house
preside the Manes of good men gone; while the 'father is god on earth'
to every one. They used to destroy all their female children, and
this, together with their national custom of offering human
sacrifices, has been put down with the greatest difficulty by the
British, who confess that there is every probability that in reality
the crime still *obtains among the remoter clans. These Khonds are
situate in the Madras presidency, and are aborigines of the Eastern
Gh[=a]ts. The most extraordinary views about them have been published.
Despite their acknowledged barbarity, savageness, and polytheism, they
have been soberly credited with a belief in One Supreme God, 'a theism
embracing polytheism,' and other notions which have been abstracted
from their worship of the sun as 'great god.'

Since these are by far the most original savages of India, a completer
sketch than will be necessary in the case of others may not be
unwelcome. The chief god is the light-or sun-god. "In the beginning
the god of light created a wife, the goddess of earth, the source of
evil." On the other hand, the
sun-god is a good god. Tari, the earth-divinity, tried to prevent
Bella[12] Pennu (sun-god) from creating man. But he cast behind him a
handful of earth, which became man. The first creation was free of
evil; earth gave fruit without labor (the Golden Age); but the dark
goddess sowed in man the seed of sin. A few were sinless still, and
these became gods, but the corrupt no longer found favor in Bella (or
Boora) Pennu's eyes. He guarded them no more. So death came to man.
Meanwhile Bella and Tari contended for superiority, with comets,
whirlwinds, and mountains, as weapons. According to one belief, Bella
won; but others hold that Tari still maintains the struggle. The
sun-god created all inferior deities, of rain, fruit, *hunt,
boundaries, etc., as well as all tutelary local divinities.[13] Men
have four kinds of fates. The soul goes to the sun, or remai