Note 178 — Chapter I · THE GODLINGS OF NATURE.

Among the Bhîls in time of drought women and girls go out dancing and singing with bows and arrows in their hands, and seizing a buffalo belonging to another village, sacrifice it to the goddess Kâlî. The headman of the village to which the animal belongs seldom objects to the appropriation of it. If he does, the women by abusing and threatening to shoot him always have their own way.178 Analogous to this regular rain sacrifice is the custom at Ahmadnagar, where on the bright 3rd of Baisâkh (April–May) the boys of two neighbouring villages fight with slings and stones. The local belief is that if the fight be discontinued, rain fails, or if rain does fall that it produces a plague of rats.179 At Ahmadâbâd, again, there is a city headman, known as the Nagar Seth or “chief man of the town.” When rain holds off he has to perambulate the city walls, pouring out milk to appease Râja Indra.180 Here we reach the “sympathetic magic” type of observance under which most of the other practices may be classed, though here and there we seem to find the germ of the principle of vicarious sacrifice. Thus in the Panjâb the village girls pour down on an old woman as she passes some cow-dung dissolved in water; or an old woman is made to sit down under the house-roof spout and get a wetting when it rains. Here the idea must be that her sufferings in some way propitiate the angry god. In the Muzaffarnagar District, if rain fails, they worship Râja Indra and read the story of the Megha Râja, or king of the rain. In his name they give alms to the poor and release a young bull or buffalo. Crushed grain is cooked on the edge of a tank in his honour and in the name of the rain god Khwâja Khizr, and some offering is made to Bhûmiya, the lord of the soil. In Chhattarpur, on a wall facing the east, they paint two figures with cow-dung—one representing Indra and the other Megha Râja, with their legs up and their heads hanging down. It is supposed that the discomfort thus caused to them will compel them to grant the boon of rain. The Mirzapur Korwas, when rain fails, get the Baiga to make a sacrifice and prayer to Sûraj Deota, the Sun godling.