Note 210 — Introductory Essay on Caste (continued 2)

The totem-animal was regarded as a kinsman, and the domestic animal often as a god.210 But in both these cases the life of the kinsman and god was sacrificed in order that the community might be bound together by eating the body and assimilating the life. Consequently, when grain came to be the sacrificial food, it was often held that an animal or human being must be sacrificed in the character of the corn-god or spirit, whether his own flesh was eaten or the sacred grain was imagined to be his flesh. Numerous instances of the sacrifice of the corn-spirit have been adduced by Sir J.G. Frazer in The Golden Bough, and it was he who brought this custom prominently to notice. One of the most important cases in India was the Meriah-sacrifice of the Khonds, which is described in the article on that tribe.