Note 36 — DOMESTIC LIFE
Reading edition
A remarkable number of suicides by poisoning take place among the Lhotas. For this the root of a common flowering plant called rhisa is used. This poison has a very strong taste and cannot be given to another man without his knowledge. Mixed with boiled rice it is used as rat poison. Tradition has it that men of standing used to be poisoned by their enemies through the agency of old women and children, and a man once told the writer that he was nearly poisoned in that way. But no authentic case of murder by poisoning appears ever to have been known.36