Note 32 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.

“Then the friends of the patient make the cooked rice in a ball, and work a little hollow in the top of the ball. They sprinkle the ball with red powder, and in the hollow put a piece of a plantain leaf, and on the leaf put oil, and a wick, which they light. Then the Gâdi, or flesh-eating priest, brings the goat in front of the sick man, sprinkles the goat’s head with red powder and flowers, and says to the spirit, ‘This is for you; take it.’ He then passes three fowls three times from the head to the foot of the sick man, and then from the head lowers all the other articles. The Gâdi, or Mhâr, and some friends of the patient start for the place named by the spirit. When the party leave, the sick man is taken into the house and set close to the threshold. They put water on his eyes, and filling a pot with water, throw it outside where the articles were, and inside and outside scatter cowdung ashes, saying, ‘If you come in you will have the curse of Râma and Lakshmana.’ When the Gâdi and the party reach their destination, the Gâdi tells the party to bring a stone the size of a cocoanut. When the stone is brought, the Gâdi washes it and puts it to the root of the tree and sets about it small stones. On the tree and on the middle stone he puts red lead, red powder, and frankincense. The people then tell the spirit to stay there, and promise to give him a cocoanut every year if he does them no harm. They then kill the goat and the fowls, and, letting the blood fall in front of the stone, offer the heart and liver to the spirit, and then return home.”32