Note 15 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

This may possibly be one explanation of the practice among Chamârs and other low castes in Northern India, when at marriages boys dress up as women and perform a rude and occasionally obscene dance. Among the Modh Brâhmans of Gujarât, at marriages, the bridegroom’s maternal uncle, whose special position is almost certainly a survival from times when descent through the mother was the only recognized form, dresses as a Jhanda or Pathân Faqîr, whose ghost is dangerous, in woman’s clothes from head to waist, and in men’s clothes below, rubs his face with oil, daubs it with red powder, goes with the bride and bridegroom to a place where two roads meet (which, as we have seen, is a haunt of spirits), and stays there till the pair offer the goddess food.15