Note 168 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

In Upper India, among the lower Hindu castes, when the mourners return after the ceremony, they bathe, water being a scarer of ghosts, and at the house door they touch a stone, cowdung, iron, fire, and water, which have been placed outside the house in readiness when the corpse was removed. They then touch each their left ears with the little finger of the left hand, chew leaves of the bitter Nîm tree as a sign of mourning, and, after sitting some time in silence, disperse. Others, as the Ghasiyas, pass their feet through the smoke of burning oil, and others merely rub their feet with oil to drive away the ghost. The same idea of barring the return of the ghost by means of fire is found among the Nats of Kâthiâwâr, who burn hay on the face of the corpse before cremating it, and among the Thoris, who brand the great toe of the right foot of the deceased.168