Note 77 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

In Upper India the forms of the tattoo marks fall into various classes. Some are rude or conventionalized representations of animals, plants, and flowers. The operators carry round with them sketches of the different kinds of ornament, and the girl selects these according to taste. The peacock, the horse, the serpent, the scorpion, tortoise, centipede, appear constantly in various forms. Others, again, are representations of jewellery actually worn—necklaces, bracelets, armlets, or rings. Others, again, are purely religious, such as the trident or matted hair of Siva, the weapons of Vishnu, and the cooking house of Sîtâ, the type of wifely virtue. Some of these marks were probably of totemistic origin, but they have now become merely ornamentative, as was the case in Central Asia in the time of Marco Polo, where they were regarded only as “a piece of elegance or a sign of gentility,” and among the Thracians, as described by Herodotus.77 It may be noticed that in the time of Marco Polo people used to go from Upper India to Zayton in China to be tattooed.78 These animal forms of tattooing are found also among the Drâvidian tribes of the Central Provinces, where the forms used are a peacock, an antelope, or a dagger, and the marks are made on the back of the thighs and legs. In Bengal tattooing is used as a cure for goitre.79