Note 75 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

At present among low-caste women the process of tattooing is regarded as a species of initiation, and usually marks the attainment of puberty. It thus corresponds with the rite of ear-piercing among males. To the east of the North-West Provinces a girl is not allowed to cook until she is tattooed with a mark representing the Sîtâ kî Rasoî or cook-house of Sîtâ, and in Bengal high-caste people will not drink from the hands of a girl who does not wear the Ullikhî or star-shaped tattoo mark between her eyebrows. A Chamâr woman who is not tattooed at marriage will not, it is believed, see her father and mother in the next world. This reminds us of the idea prevalent in Fiji, that women who are not tattooed are liable to special punishment in the land of the dead.75 In Bombay the custom has been provided with a Brâhmanical legend. One day Lakshmî, the wife of Vishnu, told her husband that whenever he went out on business or to visit his devotees she became frightened. Hearing this, Vishnu took his weapons and stamped them on her body, saying that the marks of his weapons would save her from evil.