Note 14 — Chapter IV · THE WORSHIP OF THE SAINTED DEAD.
Reading edition
He instances a case of a family of village proprietors, “who had for several generations insisted at every new settlement upon having the name of the spirit of the old proprietor inserted in the lease instead of their own, and thereby secured his good graces on all occasions.” “A cultivator who trespassed on land believed to be in charge of such a spirit had his son bitten by a snake, and his two oxen were seized with the murrain. In terror he went off to the village temple, confessed his sin, and vowed to restore not only the half-acre of land, but to build a very handsome temple on the spot as a perpetual sign of his repentance. The boy and the bullocks all then recovered, the shrine was built, and is, I believe, still to be seen as a boundary mark.”14