Beast and Man in India
by John Lockwood Kipling · English · Gutenberg #40708 · 562,252 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beast and Man in India
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Beast and Man in India
Author: John Lockwood Kipling
Release date: September 9, 2012 [eBook #40708]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40708
Credits: E-text prepared by Sankar Viswanathan, Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net). Some page images were generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAST AND MAN IN INDIA ***
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 40708-h.htm or 40708-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/40708/pg40708-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40708/40708-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
http://archive.org/details/beastmaninindiap00kipliala
BEAST AND MAN IN INDIA
A Popular Sketch of Indian Animals
in Their Relations with the People
by
JOHN LOCKWOOD KIPLING, C.I.E.
With Illustrations
London
Macmillan and Co., Limited
New York: The Macmillan Company
1904
"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contained
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things."
WALT WHITMAN.
TO THE OTHER THREE
[Illustration:]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
1. INTRODUCTORY 1
2. OF BIRDS 16
3. OF MONKEYS 56
4. OF ASSES 75
5. OF GOATS AND SHEEP 87
6. OF COWS AND OXEN 103
7. OF BUFFALOES AND PIGS 154
8. OF HORSES AND MULES 164
9. OF ELEPHANTS 207
10. OF CAMELS 244
11. OF DOGS, FOXES, AND JACKALS 261
12. OF CATS 282
13. OF ANIMAL CALLS 288
14. OF ANIMAL TRAINING 292
15. OF REPTILES 303
16. OF ANIMALS IN INDIAN ART 320
17. OF BEAST FIGHTS 344
18. OF ANIMALS AND THE SUPERNATURAL 352
ILLUSTRATIONS
CALIGRAPHIC TIGER _Mūnshi Sher Muhammad_ _Dedication_
PAGE
BIRD SCARING _J. L. Kipling_ 15
INITIAL (A PUNJAB WINDOW) _Amir Bakhsh_ 16
THE PARROT'S CAGE _J. L. Kipling_ 18
A PERFORMING PARROT _do._ 21
A BIRD-SINGING MATCH (DELHI ARTISANS) _do._ 23
THE FAMILIAR CROW _do._ 28
CALF AND CROWS _do._ 29
TERRA-COTTA SEED AND WATER TROUGH
(FROM A PUNJAB VILLAGE MOSQUE) 48
UNHOODED _F. H. Andrews_ 51
MONKEY GOD (FROM AN INDIAN
LITHOGRAPH) 56
LANGŪRS AT HOME _J. L. Kipling_ 58
YOUNG MONKEYS AT PLAY _do._ 69
INITIAL LETTER (ASSES IN A CITY ALLEY) _do._ 76
THE POTTER AND HIS DONKEY _do._ 80
A HINDU SACRIFICIAL KNIFE _Mūnshi Sher Muhammad_ 87
A DOMESTIC SACRIFICE (MUHAMMADAN) _J. L. Kipling_ 89
ON THE DUSTY HIGHWAY _do._ 92
MILCH GOATS _do._ 94
A GUILTY GOAT _do._ 95
THE GOAT-SKIN WATER-BAG (MASHK) _J. L. Kipling_ 97
BHISTI, OR WATER-CARRIER _do._ 99
A SPORTING MAN _do._ 101
A BOMBAY MILK WOMAN _do._ 103
KRISHNA ADORED BY THE GOPIS
(FROM AN INDIAN PICTURE) 112
KRISHNA DRIVES THE CATTLE HOME
(FROM AN INDIAN PICTURE) 114
PUNJAB BAILI (SPRINGLESS OX-CART) _J. L. Kipling_ 117
COMPARATIVE SIZES OF THE LARGEST
AND SMALLEST BREEDS OF INDIAN OXEN _J. L. Kipling_ 118
THE BOMBAY REKLA _do._ 119
COW AND CALF _do._ 123
AT SUNSET _do._ 131
PLOUGHING _do._ 135
IN TIME OF DROUGHT _do._ 137
IN A GOOD SEASON _do._ 139
THE OILMAN'S OX _do._ 143
THE PERSIAN WHEEL _do._ 144
SHOEING AN OX _do._ 146
OOPLA (COW-DUNG FUEL) _do._ 148
GOING TO WORK (PUNJAB) _do._ 150
A RUSTIC KRISHNA _do._ 152
BUFFALOES _do._ 156
MAHESWAR FIGHTING KALI
(FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH) 158
WAITING FOR THE WAZIR J. L. Kipling 164
IN TRAINING _do._ 170
INDIAN "THORN BITS" _Mūnshi Sher Muhammad_ 173
A PROCESSIONAL HORSE J. L. Kipling 175
A RAJA'S CHARGER (MARWAR BREED) _do._ 177
A RAJA'S HORSE (WAZIRI BREED) _J. L. Kipling_ 181
A MONEY-LENDER ON A DECCAN PONY _do._ 183
BOMBAY TRAM-HORSE WEARING HORSE-CAP _J. Griffiths_ 185
PUNJAB FARMER ON A BRANDED MARE _J. L. Kipling_ 187
THE EKKA, NORTHERN INDIA _do._ 191
AN INDIAN FARRIER _do._ 195
A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK (HINDU DEVOTEE) _do._ 203
THE WHEELS OF A MOUNTAIN BATTERY _do._ 205
FROM THE SANCHI TOPE _do._ 207
GANÉSHA (FROM AN ANCIENT HINDU
SCULPTURE) _do._ 209
SHIV OR MAHADEO, WITH THE INFANT
GANÉSH (FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH) 210
IF GANÉSHA STOOD _J. L. Kipling_ 212
AN ELEPHANT GOAD (ANKUS) _Mūnshi Sher Muhammad_ 227
UNDRESS _J. L. Kipling_ 229
A PAINTED ELEPHANT _Mūnshi Sher Muhammad_ 231
WAITING FOR THE RAJA _J. L. Kipling_ 234
IN ROYAL STATE _do._ 236
ELEPHANT PILING TIMBER (BURMAH) _do._ 240
ELEPHANT LIFTING TEAK LOGS (BURMAH) _do._ 241
BILOCH FAMILY ON THE MARCH _do._ 244
IN A SERAI (REST-HOUSE) _do._ 248
RAJPUT CAMEL-RIDER'S BELT _Mūnshi Sher Muhammad_ 249
RAJPUT CAMEL GUNS _J. L. Kipling_ 255
THE LEADING CAMEL OF A KAFILA
(AFGHANISTAN) _do._ 259
A SUBALTERN'S DOG-BOY _do._ 261
OUTCASTES (A BEGGING LEPER AND
PARIAH DOGS) _do._ 265
PLAYFELLOWS _do._ 268
IN FLOODTIME _do._ 280
A HUNTING CHEETAH _J. L. Kipling_ 294
A RESTLESS BEDFELLOW _do._ 296
A BEAR LEADER _do._ 298
PERFORMING MONKEYS AND GOAT _do._ 299
A PERFORMING BULL (MADRAS) _do._ 301
VISHNU RECLINING ON THE SERPENT
(FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH) 303
A SNAKE-CHARMER _J. L. Kipling_ 316
INITIAL LETTER (DECORATIVE PARROTS) _do._ 320
MODERN ELEPHANT SCULPTURE, FROM
THE TOMB OF SOWAI JAI SINGH,
MAHARAJA OF JEYPORE _J. L. Kipling_ 324
BORAK. CALIGRAPHIC PICTURE
COMPOSED OF PRAYERS _Mūnshi Sher Muhammad_ 325
SMALL WARES IN METAL _J. L. Kipling_ 330
BIRDS BY AN INDIAN DRAUGHTSMAN 332
A PERI ON A CAMEL _Bhai Isur Singh_ 333
KRISHNA ON AN ELEPHANT _do._ 334
KRISHNA ON A HORSE _do._ 335
NANDI OR SACRED BULL _J. L. Kipling_ 336
CATTLE BY AN UNKNOWN INDIAN ARTIST 338
A PUNJAB HEROINE
(FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH) 342
ANTELOPES. AN INDIAN ARTIST'S FANTASY 343
BUFFALO BULLS FIGHTING _J. L. Kipling_ 344
A DYING BULLOCK (FINIS) _do._ 360
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
When, on the 21st March 1890, under the auspices of the Hon. Sir Andrew
Scoble, the Legislative Council of India passed an Act (XI. of 1890) for
the prevention of cruelty to animals, some surprise was expressed in
England that legislation should be necessary for a people who have long
been quoted as an example of mercy. It was hinted that Orientals must have
learned cruelty, as they have learned drunkenness, from brutal Britons.
Those who know India need not be told that this insinuation is groundless,
since both vices have for ages been rooted in the life of Eastern as of all
the nations under heaven. The general conclusion of cultivated Europe as to
the temper of Orientals towards animals is expressed by Mr. Lecky, in a
clause of the sentence with which he concludes a survey of a growth of
consideration for animals as an element of public morals, in his _History
of European Morals from Constantine to Charlemagne_, and runs thus: "The
Muhammadans and the Brahmans have in this sphere considerably surpassed the
Christians."
There is enough truth in this statement to give interest to an examination
of it. The gulf that must exist between religious prescriptions that have
earned a world-wide reputation for mercy and a practice which has led a
Government, strongly adverse to unnecessary legislation, to frame an
enactment for the prevention of cruelty, deserves looking into. We ought,
perhaps, to distrust most of the compendious phrases which presume to label
our complex and paradoxical humanity with qualities and virtues, like drugs
in a drawer. At all events, it is better not to try to make another rule
but to offer a few general considerations and details of actual fact,
leaving the Christian to frame his summary for himself.
* * * * *
The wholesale ascription of tender mercy to India may not unfairly be held
to be part of a wide and general misconception of Indian life and
character, of which the administrator, the schoolmaster, and the missionary
have reason to complain. They find on closer acquaintance that both Hindus
and Muhammadans are more human and more like the rest of the world than the
conventional pictures of Scholars, working from a dead and done-with
literature, had led them to expect. Some of the most authoritative of these
writers have never ventured to disturb their dreams by contact with the
living India of to-day, and their gushing periods have, in consequence, as
much actuality as Gulliver's Travels. For nearly all, the last few
centuries of this era do not exist. To judge from their writings, the
English power in India might have succeeded that of the Gupta kings. No
mention is made of the horrible hole of the pit from which the country was
digged; and the events that really shaped the character and habits of the
people are ignored in favour of ancient law-givers and forgotten Vedas.
Nothing could be more scholarly, amiable, sentimental, or mistaken, and the
plain result is a falsification of history which has more ill effects than
are visible on the narrow horizon of an English study.
It is not a pleasant subject to dwell upon, but there is no more fitting
adjective than "cruel" for the India of the late Mogul and the Pindāri. We
may allow that through centuries of trouble the Hindu system availed to
preserve Brahmanical ordinances, but these only affected a limited portion
of the community. The masses of the people, who really have to do with
animals, could not but be demoralised. So general precepts of mercy for the
many shrank into ritual observances for the few. Moreover, such precepts as
exist have been exaggerated in report.
Strictly speaking, the Parsee religious code alone, among those of Oriental
races, directly enjoins a humane and considerate treatment of all animals
during their life, as may be fully learned from the Book of Ardha Viraf,
the Dante of the Zoroastrian _Inferno_. The Hindu worships the cow, and as
a rule is reluctant to take the life of any animal except in sacrifice. But
that does not preserve the ox, the horse, and the ass from being
unmercifully beaten, over-driven, over-laden, under-fed, and worked with
sores under their harness; nor does it save them from abandonment to
starvation when unfit for work, and to a lingering death which is made a
long torture by birds of prey, whose beaks, powerless to kill outright,
inflict undeserved torment. And the same code which exalts the Brahman and
the cow, thrusts the dog, the ass, the buffalo, the pig, and the low-caste
man beyond the pale of merciful regard.
The loving-kindness of which we hear is, in modern fact and deed, a vague
reluctance to take life by a positive sudden act, except for sacrifice,--a
large exception,--and a ceremonial reverence for the cow, which does not
avail to secure even for her such good treatment as the milch cows of
Europe receive. There are some castes who hold it wrong even to
accidentally destroy an insect, who keep a cloth before their mouths to
prevent swallowing them, and who brush the ground before they seat
themselves, so that they may not crush out some minute life. But they teach
no gospel of mercy, inheriting only an observance of their peculiar caste,
absolutely inert beyond its boundaries. Indeed, it is well for mankind that
they are not propagandists, for, clearly a man who refuses to take or to
interfere with animal life in any way, and who says that while the cat
should be left to kill the mouse, the serpent should not by a truly pious
man be prevented from entering the cradle of his sleeping child, is not a
teacher of much value. No general temper of pity towards animals in service
has been produced by Brahmanical law, and probably not by any merely
religious ordinances in any part of the world. Feeling for the sufferings
of animals, restraint in their use, and recognition of their rights to
consideration, are just as modern in India as elsewhere.
The reluctance to kill, which is the main fact of Hindu animal treatment,
is of itself, from a European point of view, a cause of needless suffering.
We speak of putting injured or diseased creatures out of their misery. To
the mind of the orthodox Hindu there is no such thing as euthanasia, and it
is impious to attempt to bring it about. An English correspondent of the
_Pioneer_, 30th October 1890, writes:--
"At Chandi, near Kalka, I last week found a Government dāk horse lying in
a public grove, close to the road, a hind leg of which had been broken
(according to the people there) three days before, through a kick. This
poor beast had been hauled out and thrown down alive to die a lingering
death. It was perfectly conscious. I found it surrounded by crows, which
had already picked out both of its eyes, and when I arrived were in the act
of devouring other tender parts. The horse attracted my attention by
throwing its head up repeatedly to drive the crows off. Luckily I had a
pistol, and of course shot the animal at once."
There is nothing unusual in this, for it is the fate of all animals that
serve the Hindu to be left to die; and though most English people would
approve of that pistol-shot, it was wrong according to the Hindu canon.
The cause of the canon is not far to seek. The doctrine of the
transmigration of souls is at the root of _ahimsa_, the ancient principle
of regard for animals, for it makes all living nature kin with humanity. A
bull is more than a bull, he is a potential grandfather. We have all been
here before, and the souls of the hosts of men and animals, birds, and
fishes have passed in these various disguises through infinite æons of time
and change. Believing this, you naturally hold your hand before dismissing
a soul to another flight and another change of dwelling.
* * * * *
In this, as in other Indian subjects, a vast and most various population
has been labelled with attributes that belong to a few of the upper classes
alone. A description of the habits and beliefs of the Bench of Bishops
would scarcely be accepted as fairly representative of the masses of Great
Britain, but something like this suffices for popular estimates of India.
Those who have but little to do with animals are enjoined not to kill, but
no command is laid on the low-caste Hindu, while the average Muhammadan,
ignorant though devout, knows of none. Even Hindus are not, as is commonly
believed, universally vegetarian. Nearly all eat fish, vast and yearly
increasing numbers eat mutton and kid, Rajputs and Sikhs eat wild boar, and
most low-caste Hindus are only vegetarian when flesh food is not within
their reach. All Muhammadans are flesh eaters as a matter of course. A
Levitical code is naturally a mother of hypocrisy, so Hindus living among
Hindus of higher caste will call mutton _lal sâg_--red vegetable; and fish,
water beans; while prawns are ennobled as Shiva biscuits, but they are
eaten all the same.
Animal sacrifices, and the peculiar character of the religious ceremonies
of certain Hindu Sâkti worshipping castes, at whose meetings the eating of
flesh and the drinking of wine and spirits form part of a ritual of orgy,
also tend to lower the standard from the ideal Europeans have conceived of
the Hindu. There are vast numbers of these "left-hand" worshippers. Here it
may be remarked that the "official" books of mythology, etc., are no guide
to modern practice, or to a comprehension of modern life. Modern Hinduism,
as Sir Monier M. Williams has well said, is "a loose conglomerate," and it
is a conglomerate in process of decay and change. The High Gods described
in the works one may call "official" may not be quite dead, but they are
practically superseded in favour of witchcraft, demonolatry, and fetishism,
or by vulgar manifestations, usually of an orgiastic type. Wholesale
slaughter and blood are constantly associated with these Gods, Godlings,
and demons. Some writers claim for Hinduism a wonderful immutability; and
this preposterous contention, which would be scouted if made on behalf of
any other race of mankind, has been allowed to pass unchallenged. It has
decay inherent in its system, and its history is one long chronicle of
protest, dissent, and change.
Persons of the Vegetarian persuasion sometimes claim a moral superiority
for the Hindu, in that his delicacy of feeling is not blunted by the
horrors of the Western butcher's shop. This is plausible but illusory, for
there are plenty of butchers' shops in India, and it should be further
remembered that of the thousands who habitually pass such shops in the
West, but a very small percentage have seen the act of slaughter, wherein
demoralising influence may be supposed to lie. The Hindu, on the other
hand, is familiar with slaughter in a most revolting form, performed as an
act of sacrifice. When we talk of sacrifice we think of the grave and
decent solemnities described in the Bible or in Homer. Such ideas are
rudely dispelled by the reality in India. The goat and buffalo sacrifices
to Kali at Kali ghât in the highly civilised metropolis of Bengal are not
to be mentioned in connection with any slaughtering we know of, for there
may be seen thousands of people gloating in delirious excitement over
rivers of blood.
* * * * *
There are general injunctions of mercy in the Buddhist religion, but
Buddhism has been dead and done with in India proper for centuries, and has
left but little behind it. Always vague and abstract, it is doubtful
whether its languid prescriptions ever effectively controlled the daily
practice of the people. The Singhalese are Buddhists, and yet cruelty to
animals is one of the marks of modern Ceylon. The modern Burman is a
Buddhist and should not take life. But, like Gautama Buddha himself, he
eats flesh, so he contents his conscience by calling the butcher a
Muhammadan. We are apt to judge of the results of a creed from the aims of
its commandments, which is putting the cart before the horse. Yet we ought
to know better, for the main stress of our Christian commandment is to lay
up no treasure on earth, to consider the lilies of the field, to sell all
and follow the Christ, etc. etc. In the Christian capitals of the Western
world one may see how much of this injunction is obeyed.
The ordinary Englishman will not easily be persuaded that the act of
killing an animal or bird for food is necessarily a proof of cruelty. I
write these lines in an English house in the country, the gracious lady
whereof has just returned from a visit to some friends in the village, who
had sent word that their pig was killed. Here is a delicate and refined
Englishwoman going in cold blood to see a dead pig! Nothing could be more
horrible from a Hindu or Muhammadan point of view, but from that of English
country life it is natural enough. The lady is a valued friend of a
struggling family. Their pig has been kindly treated and carefully fed for
months, and its death is a sort of festival; they are proud of its weight
and size, and it is one of the triumphs of their provident and thrifty
lives. "And the pig?" says the master of the house at lunch. "Well, I had
to look at the pig, and it seemed a fine pig enough. They said it weighed
14 score, and I said it must be the largest they had fed since their
mother died, and they were all much pleased, and wanted to tell me stories
of past pigs, but I managed to escape."
The topsy-turvy morality of the East would give a higher place to the
Levitically clean Hindu, who would die sooner than eat flesh, but who would
also rather die than touch or help a dying man of a low caste near his
door, than to the English lady whose life is spent in active beneficence,
but who is defiled by eating beef and approaching the dead body of a pig.
The animal hospitals of India have been frequently quoted, and with some
reason, as a proof of the tender mercy of the country. There are three of
these interesting institutions on the great continent, at Bombay, Surat,
and Ahmedabad, chiefly maintained by Banians of the Jain faith. The Bombay
"pinjrapol," however, is said to have been largely endowed by the generous
Parsee, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, first baronet of the name. They are not
hospitals in the true sense, for ailments are not treated, but simply
refuges for halt, maimed, diseased, and blind creatures for whom nobody
cares. Until the late Mr. J. H. Steel, Principal of the Bombay Veterinary
College, took compassion on the inmates and regularly visited the place, no
attempt had ever been made to alleviate their sufferings; and the
institution is of some antiquity. Ritual reverence for life does not
include the performance of acts of mercy. It is enough to save the animal
from immediate death, and to place food within its reach. So you see there
creatures with unset broken limbs, with hoofs eighteen inches long, and
monstrous wens. The dogs, as I remember them twenty years ago, were a
heartbreaking sight, confined, with nothing to do but fight, insufficiently
fed, and all afflicted with one equal misery of mange. A quaint feature of
the place is an apartment supposed to be full of the vermin that feed on
mankind. From time to time a man is paid to spend a night in this den in
order to give the cherished insects a dinner, but first he is drugged to
insensibility, lest in his natural irritation he should be tempted to
destroy some of them. I have always doubted this, and certainly never saw
it done, but it is one of the proudest traditions of the "pinjrapol,"
vouched for by Native gentlemen of undoubted authority.
There are admirable points in the ritual respect for life, but it is not
true humanity, nor is it practised with sufficient intelligence or feeling
to profit the animal. We in the West may at least learn from it the
reflection that all living things cling to life, nor need we in the present
state of Veterinary science be always so prompt with pistol or poleaxe as
is our habit.
But it must be noted that the sect which cares for animal hospitals is
comparatively small, with only a local influence, and that its practice in
this matter is the subject of a good deal of popular gibe. For it is not
easy to respect people who collect caterpillars, and feed fleas and other
vermin with human blood, nor is it only to the Occidental that a fantastic
glorification of the letter of a law may show the death of its spirit.
Oriental tender mercy has always been liable to this taint of grotesque
exaggeration. That renowned model of kindness and generosity, whose name is
on every Oriental's lips, and whose deeds are constantly quoted--Hatim
Tai--fed his brother the tiger (as St. Francis of Assisi would say) with
portions of flesh cut from his own limbs. This may be heroic, but, like
many other illustrious examples of Oriental goodness, it is also absurd,
and so remote from every possibility of ordinary life and conduct as to
exert no practical influence as a lesson.
* * * * *
Yet, while maintaining that no precept of mercy has protected animals in
servitude in India, we may gladly admit that a more humane temper prevails
with regard to free creatures than in the West. Village boys are not there
seen stoning frogs or setting dogs at cats, nor tying kettles to dogs'
tails, and it has not been found necessary to forbid bird-nesting by Act of
Parliament. The Indian schoolboy on his way to school passes numbers of
squirrels, much resembling the chipmunk of America, but he never throws a
stone at them; and the sparrow, the crow, the maina, and the hoopoe move
from his path without a flutter of fear. The india-rubber catapult or
tweaker of the West has not yet reached him, while the sling and the
_golél_ or pellet-bow (the "stone bow" of Shakspeare) seem to be only used
when guarding fruit and crops from the hungry parrakeet and the omnivorous
crow.
One of the most surprising things in the country is the patience with which
depredations on the crops are endured. With far less provocation the
English farmer organises sparrow clubs, and freely uses the gun, the trap,
and the poisoned bait. And the Indian farmer suffers from creatures that
earn no dole of grain by occasional insecticide. The monkey, the nilghai,
the black buck, the wild pig, and the parrakeet fatten at his expense, and
never kill a caterpillar or a weevil in return. He and his family spend
long and dismal hours on a platform of sticks raised a few feet above the
crops, whence they lift their voices against legions of thieves. The
principle of abstaining from slaughter is pushed to an almost suicidal
point in purely Hindu regions, and becomes a serious trouble at times. A
large tract of fertile country in the N.-W. Provinces, bordering on the
Bhurtpore State, is now lapsing into jungle on account of the inroads of
the nilghai and the wild pig. The "blue cow" or nilghai is sacred, and may
not be killed even by the villagers whom the creature drives from their
homes, and there are not enough sportsmen or tigers to keep down the wild
boar.
Gardeners try to scare the birds with elaborate arrangements of string,
bamboos, old pans, and stones in their fruit trees; and sometimes a watcher
sits like a spider at the centre of an arrangement of cords, radiating all
over the field, so that an alarming movement may be produced at any point.
Yet their tempers do not give way, and they preserve a monumental patience.
Sometimes they say: "The peacock, the monkey, the deer, the partridge,
these four are thieves," or include other animals and birds with varying
numbers, but always with more resignation than resentment. The wisdom of
the village says that public calamities are seven, and are visitations of
God,--drought, floods, locusts, rats, parrots, tyranny, and invasion. The
professional birdcatcher, however, is never of the farmer race, and owes
his victims no revenge; while a scornful proverb on his ragged and
disreputable condition shows that he earns no gratitude from the
cultivator. Another rustic saying about bird slaughter, expanded into its
full meaning, would run: "You kill a paddy-bird, and what do you get?--a
handful of feathers!" Yet since Parisian milliners have decreed that
civilised women shall wear birds in their head-gear, there is not
sufficient respect for animal life to stay the barbarous slaughter of them
now going on all over India.
The tolerance or indifference which leaves wild creatures alone is
unfortunately an intimate ally of blank ignorance. That townspeople should
be ignorant of nature is to be expected, but even in the country a
fly-catcher, a sparrow, and a shrike are all spoken of as _chiriyas_, birds
merely, and not one in fifty, save out-caste folk, can tell you anything of
their habits, food, nests, or eggs. The most vague and incorrect statements
are accepted and repeated without thought, a habit common to all
populations, but more firmly rooted in India than elsewhere. First-hand
observation and accurate statement of fact seem almost impossible to the
Oriental, and education has not hitherto availed to help him. In the West
public instruction becomes more real and vital year by year, but in the
East it is still bound hand and foot to the corpse of a dead literature.
Educational authorities in India discern the fault, but they are themselves
mainly of the literary caste and direct native Professors whose passion is
for words. We talk of science teaching, but forget to count with a national
habit of mind that stands carefully aloof from facts and is capable of
reducing the splendid suggestions of Darwin and Wallace, Faraday and
Edison, to mechanical and inert rote work.
Indifference is intensified by the narrowness of sympathy produced by the
caste system, and by the discouragement of attachment to animals among
respectable people. Our modern school-books, in which lessons on animal
life and humane animal treatment are wisely included, may do something in
the course of time to lighten this "blind side" of Oriental character, and
in a few generations we may hope for an Indian student of natural history.
At present this splendid field is left entirely to European observers, who
mostly look at nature along the barrel of a gun. Which is a false
perspective.
* * * * *
I conclude that, while admitting the need for a legislative measure for the
protection of animals, consonant with the wishes and feelings of the most
cultivated classes in India, and of itself a sign of advancing civilisation
and morality, it would be a task as difficult as hateful to prove that the
people at large have any abnormal and inborn tendency to cruelty. The
shadow of evil days of anarchy, disorder, and rapine has but lately cleared
away and given place to an era of security, when, as the country proverb
says, "the tiger and the goat drink at one ghât." The people are better
than their creeds, but it is not easy to defend their practice, though it
is often more due to necessity, custom, and ignorance than to downright
brutality of intent.
To explain something of this in a familiar manner befitting an everyday,
familiar subject is the purpose of this pen and pencil essay. It has seemed
to me that an elementary study of Indian animals, their treatment and
usage, and the popular estimates and sayings current about them, though
involving much that is commonplace and trivial, opens a side door into
Indian life, thought, and character, the threshold of which is still
unworn.
To Anglo-Indians of long standing a word of apology is due for the apparent
confidence with which native beliefs are treated. The truth is, it is hard
to state briefly ideas of this nature without a seeming assumption of
complete knowledge. But they will recognise the difficulty of translating
nebulous Indian notions into stark English print, and make just
allowances. We others know that only a fool will pretend to say with
absolute confidence what a native thinks. Even in the West, where men think
aloud, and the noisy newspaper proclaims the matter on the house-top, it
takes a wise man to say how the popular mind is working.
India has a larger inheritance than most other countries in sacred and
legendary lore of animals; but much of it has now only a literary interest,
and but a remote connection with the actual life of the people. I have
neither the scholarship nor the ambition to produce "one of those learned
compilations which have no root in actual life, epitomise the past, and
have no future." Serious students of Zoolatry and of folk-lore in its
scientific sense will therefore find little to interest them in chapters
wherein a living dog is frankly preferred to a dead lion.
[Illustration: BIRD SCARING]
CHAPTER II
OF BIRDS
"Birds, companions more unknown
Live beside us, but alone;
Finding not, do all they can,
Passage from their souls to man.
Kindness we bestow, and praise,
Laud their plumage, greet their lays;
Still, beneath the feather'd breast,
Stirs a history unexpress'd."
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The Parrot.--The parrakeet (_Palæornis eupatrius_) is in some regions
believed to have earned the gratitude of man by its services in bringing
the seeds of fruit and grain from the garden of Paradise after the Flood
and sowing them abroad on the earth for his use. Ages of shameless larceny
have nearly effaced the memory of that fabled feat, but the creature is
still tolerated, and is the familiar bird of the fields and groves as well
as the favourite cage bird of India.
The parrot plays a leading part in many folk tales, and has thus come to be
regarded as a guardian of domestic honour. In such ballads as "Lord
William" and "May Colvine and fause Sir John," the popinjay's share in
romance is shown to British readers as a curious survival, but in India we
are nearer to the time when creatures spoke and thought, and the literary
curiosity of the West is still the belief of the East. The parrot is also
reckoned an auspicious or lucky bird to have in the house. An augmentation
of honour is its appointment as the vâhan or steed of Kama or Kamdeo, a
Hindu god of love.
Unfortunately for its comfort, it has a powerful beak, and quickly destroys
a wooden cage. So it is usually confined in a small dome-shaped cage of
hoop-iron with an iron floor. During the hot season, when it is painful to
touch any metal surface, these cages must be cruel torture-chambers; and
when one watches the free birds darting to and fro like live emeralds in
the sun, with the wild scream and reckless flinging of themselves on the
air peculiar to parakeets, one cannot but grieve for the captive slowly
roasting in his tiny oven-like prison. Leaving the general question that is
sure to arise some day as to our right to imprison creatures for our
pleasure at all, the confinement we inflict should be at least as little
irksome as possible; but it is hard to persuade people that creatures have
rights, and a polite smile is the only answer to a plea for these
prisoners.
[Illustration: THE PARROT'S CAGE]
Hindus teach their pet birds the sacred words, Gunga Rām, Rama, and Sri
Bhugwān, names of God, grateful to the Hindu ear and easy to parrot speech,
while Muhammadans say Miān Mittū, which is only a caressing name from the
vast vocabulary of endearing nonsense in which Indian domestic life
excels. In Northern India a household parrot verse among Hindus is:
_Latpat, panchhi, chatur Sujān
Sub-ka dada Sri Bhugwān
Parho Gunga Rām!_
or roughly in English: "Pretty bird, clever and knowing, God is the giver
of all; say Gunga Rām!" The word here translated "say" means to read or
study, and also to recite aloud, and is constantly used for bird song. "My
lark is reading very nicely this morning," a bird-fancier will say. "Little
parrot" is a pet name for children, and "parrot talk" is a woman's
expression for their conversation when it is pretty and respectful.
"Parrot eyed" is a common phrase for an ungrateful or deceitful person,
not, as might be imagined, from the expression of the bird's eyes, but
because, after years of cherishing, it will fly away if the cage door is
left open. In spite of the opinion of my native friends, I cannot help
thinking the phrase was derived originally from the parrot's habit of not
looking at the person he is supposed to be talking to; for when one thinks
of it, a parrot's eyes have always a curiously indifferent and
"other-where" kind of expression. A certain type of face is well described
in "a mouth like a purse, a nose like a parrot's." As a hero of song and
story this bird takes part in some domestic observances. A mother will on
several consecutive days divide an almond between her parrot and her baby.
This will prevent the child from stammering, and make it bold and free of
speech. In the Punjab Himálaya there is a whimsical superstition that when
a parrot's cage hangs over the door whence a bridegroom issues to be
married, it is highly auspicious, but that something dreadful will happen
if he passes under it on any other errand. This fancy once caused some
trouble to a political officer of Government in charge of a Hill State. The
youthful Raja was to be married, and on the eve of the event, while there
was still much business to be done, he was inveigled into the zenana, or
feminine side of the palace, the inmates of which promptly hung a parrot
over the door. It was necessary, for many and urgent reasons, to withdraw
the boy from his female relatives; but the little council of the State was
sorely puzzled. It would be an awful thing to make the Raja pass under the
cage. Could he not be brought out by some other door behind, or even fished
up through a hole made in the roof? At last a grave old Wazir came in and
asked with an innocent air: "Is it quite certain that the cage is there?"
It was quite certain. "Then," said the old gentleman slily, "my eyes are
dim, for I did not see it as I passed but now." The Council went to see,
were greatly relieved to find the cage gone, and made a great pretence of
wondering how it came about. While they were deliberating with
characteristic Hindu hesitation and timidity, he had ordered a menial,
indifferent to omens, to carry it off. So the young Raja was rescued from
his factious women folk and came out.
The parrakeet is often trained as a public performer. In the streets of
Delhi I used to see one that went through gymnastic and military exercises,
whirling a tiny torch lighted at each end, loading and firing a small
cannon, lying dead and coming to life again; all done with a comic air of
eagerness and enjoyment which it seemed hard to impute to mere hunger for
the morsels that rewarded each trick. It is seldom a bird in native hands
speaks really well. Orientals are easily contented, and, though they can
take pains in some matters, are inclined to think that parrot speech comes,
as Dogberry said of reading and writing, by nature. The Indian bird,
moreover, has less natural aptitude for speech than the true parrots of
other countries.
[Illustration: A PERFORMING PARROT]
The British soldier in India, at a loss how to employ his leisure, is
frequently a butterfly-collector or a bird-fancier. Sometimes a stalwart
trooper may be seen all alone, leaning over the parapet of a well,
apparently in earnest converse with some one who has fallen in. Parrots are
believed to learn to talk more readily when taught in a darkened and silent
room. There are no such rooms in his barracks, so the soldier lets his cage
half-way down a well and spends hours in teaching his pet. The practice is
probably an indigenous one, but I have never seen a native engaged in it.
The Baya Bird.--As a performer of tricks, however, the parrakeet is
excelled by the little _baya_, the weaver bird (_Ploceus baya_). The
plumage of this clever creature is of quaker-like simplicity, but it is a
favourite cage-bird and easily acquires tricks, especially of a "fetch and
carry" nature. The table servant or waiter of a friend of mine has one that
flies to a tree at the word of command, selects a flower or leaf, plucks
it, and, returning, places it daintily between its master's lips. Some
thread beads with great dexterity, others draw up seed or water, like the
European goldfinch; but, judging from the skilful construction of its nest,
it is probably more intelligent than the goldfinch. A popular rhyming
proverb contrasts the housebuilding talent of the _baya_ bird with the
helplessness of the shelterless monkey, which, having human hands and feet,
is yet incapable of protecting itself against the weather. This verse is
often quoted for the benefit of idle boys and girls who object to learn.
The _baya_ is believed to light up its nest at night with captured
fire-flies, stuck against the fibrous wall over the head of the brooding
hen. The bird certainly catches flies, and pellets of clay are occasionally
found stuck on the inside of the nest, but further evidence is wanted
before one can do more than envy the unquestioning belief of the Oriental
in a charming fancy which may be true.
It is true that at nesting time play nests are made with a loop across the
opening, on which the birds play and the male sits and sings to solace the
female. Some say these are experimental or preliminary studies in the art
of nest-weaving.
[Illustration: A BIRD-SINGING MATCH (DELHI ARTISANS)]
Caged Song Birds.--Working people in the cities of Northern India are
great bird-fanciers, and find, as they sit for hours over their embroidery,
weaving, or shoe-making, that a singing bird is good company. The bulbul
(_Molpastes intermedius_), the _chendūl_ or tufted lark (_Galerita
cristata_), the Shāmā (_Cittocincla macrura_), the hill maina (_Eulabes
religiosa_), are most commonly seen, and there are several others. Like the
operatives of manufacturing England, Indian workmen arrange singing matches
between their birds, and enjoy sitting in groups in shady places round the
cages in which their pets are shrilling their loudest notes. It is a cruel
rule among them that a bird to sing well must be kept always in the dark. I
have heard a lark-fancier say that the cage holding a good lark should have
a fresh cloth cover every year--the old ones being allowed to remain. The
hill maina, one of the best talking birds, however, is generally allowed
to look about him; and the tiny lals or male avadavats (_Sporœginthus
amandava_), kept mainly for their minute prettiness, a dozen or more in a
cage together, are not covered up except at night as a protection against
mosquitoes. In Delhi bird-fanciers often take their birds out tied to a
small crutch-shaped perch of bright brass carried in the hand. It is
curious that precisely the same practice obtains in Pekin, where hundreds
of grave Chinamen may be seen, each carrying a small bird. In the English
midland counties linnets and bull-finches are occasionally tied to perches
and known as "braced birds."
Fighting Birds.--These Arcadian enjoyments are too simple for many tastes,
so bulbuls, quails, partridges, and even the small avadavats are encouraged
to fight. Twenty-five rupees is by no means an unusual price for a fighting
quail, and in Hyderabad (Deccan), the capital of the Nizam, a hundred and
fifty rupees is often given for a good bird. Besides the gray partridge
(_Ortygornis pondicerianus_), which is the best fighting bird, the chikōre
(_Caccabis chukor_) and the black partridge (_Francolinus vulgaris_) are
kept as pets. The house-kept artisan goes out in the cool of the morning or
evening, carrying his cage with him, and in some garden or open place
releases his bird for a run. The creature follows its master with a rapid
and pretty gait that suggests a graceful girl tripping along with a full
skirt well held up. The Indian lover can pay his sweetheart no higher
compliment than to say she runs like a partridge. In poetry the semblance
is one of the most hackneyed of Indian metaphors. In poetry, too, the
partridge is associated with the moon, and, like the lotus, is supposed to
be perpetually longing for it, while the chikōre is said to eat fire.
Indian house-wives dislike the quail, and it is by some considered an
inauspicious bird to keep; but the partridge, in spite of the taint of
blackguardism attached to fighting birds, is thought lucky, for he attracts
to himself any ill luck that may be hovering about the house,--a function
of most Indian household pets. When treated merely as house pets and
allowed to run free at times, partridges develop a good deal of
intelligence and become entertaining companions, as they are inquisitive,
pugnacious, and perfectly fearless. In cities where there are large
populations of artisans and many Muhammadans, as Delhi, Amritsar, Lahore,
Hyderabad (Deccan), Agra, Cawnpore, etc., quail and partridge fighting is
as popular a diversion as cock-fighting used to be in England, and large
sums are betted on their contests. No artificial spurs, however, are worn
by Indian birds.
The great London bird market, I am told, now that the "Dials" have
disappeared, is St. Martin's Lane on a Sunday morning. In most Indian towns
there are bird-dealers, and in some, as at Lucknow, there is a regularly
established bird bazaar, where all kinds of birds are sold,--quails, cocks,
and partridges for fighting, hawks for the chase, fancy pigeons, singing
and talking birds, and others for pets. The variety is much greater than in
any European bird market, yet there is a family likeness among
bird-fanciers everywhere. A Spitalfields weaver or a Staffordshire potter,
if he could speak the language, would find himself quite at home with
Indian bird folk in all details of handling, feeding, bargaining, and
swapping, and in most appreciations of bird points.
What Birds say.--Good Muhammadans think the black partridge pious, since
its call fits itself to the words "Sobhān teri qŭdrăt"--"Thine, O Lord, is
the power"; but more worldly ears distinguish the words "Lăssăn, piāz,
ădhrăk"--"Garlic, onions, ginger"; or, according to some, "Nūn, tel,
ădhrăk,"--"salt, oil, ginger," the chief condiments of curry. The Indian
ring-dove (_Turtur risorius_) is similarly endeared to Muhammadans by its
pious persistence in the cry "Yusuf ku"--"Joseph is in the well," which it
first raised when the wicked brethren said he was slain and showed the
grieving Jacob the blood-stained coat of many colours. Another dove is
thought to say "Allah! Allah!" The partridge says "Fakiri Fakiri." A wild
pigeon is thought to repeat "Haq sirr hu"--"God knows the secret"; the
ordinary rooster exhorts the thoughtless to remember God by crowing--"Zikr'
ullah! Zikr' ullah! ya ghafīlin!" while the raven hoarsely cries "Ghâr,
Ghâr," as he did when he basely tried to betray Muhammad hidden in the cave
of Jebel Thaur to his enemies the Khoreish, when the pious pigeon built her
nest and the spider stretched her webs across the entrance. It is quite
easy to hear these words in birds' notes--when you know them--and they are
at least as much like the original sounds as the renderings of those
scientific ornithologists who have tried to express bird music in
syllables. In the notes to Mr. Lane's _Arabian Nights_ are given versions
of bird talk as they strike Arab ears, with wondrous instances of learned
parrots, including one which knew the Qurân right through and corrected a
misreading!
The Hoopoe.--Other birds are prized for the legends with which they are
associated. The hoopoe (_Upupa epops_) has not much to say, but he is a
favourite because he was King Solomon's messenger; and he is known as the
king of birds from the story of his crest and crown, which, perhaps, is not
too hackneyed to be repeated here. One hot day King Solomon, travelling on
his angel-borne magic carpet, was oppressed by the heat of the sun, and the
hoopoes flew over his head, wing to wing in a close and protecting canopy.
Solomon was grateful, and promised to grant whatever boon the hoopoes
thought fit to ask. They foolishly asked to be allowed to wear golden
crowns like his. The great king granted their request, and presently all
the bird-catchers in the country were enriched by the spoil of dead
hoopoes. A remnant escaped and ruefully prayed for the removal of the
dangerous distinction. So the crest of feathers was given instead, and the
bird-catchers ceased from troubling. If you suggest to a native that the
hoopoe's crest may serve as "the other end" of the pickaxe-like beak, and
point out its balancing action as the bird drives it into the ground, he
listens and assents, but his assent informs you he has no great opinion of
your sense.
[Illustration: THE FAMILIAR CROW]
The Crow.--The Indian crow (_Corvus splendens_) acts as a messenger in many
folk stories, and is still supposed to announce approaching visitors. In a
land where the _pitris_ or spirits of the dead are believed to be flitting
round continually, seeking rest, and inhabiting the bodies of animals and
birds, it is easy to imagine the bold and familiar crow haunting houses,
peering into windows and doors, a restless human ghost. They are often fed
as a propitiation to spirit land. In this belief it is said that a pair of
crows were carried to that imperfectly quenched cinder heap, Aden, forty
years ago, by the Hindu labourers engaged on the fortifications there. A
Hindu who saw them says: "The poor creatures had no trees on which to
perch, and they wandered about from rock to rock cawing piteously." It is
firmly believed, and there is more ground for the belief than usual, that
crows hold _punchayets_, caste-councils or committees, and inflict summary
punishments on offenders. It is at least certain that in India, as
elsewhere, a maimed or disabled bird, unable to escape or hide himself, is
set upon by his kind and killed. I once had for pensioner a lame crow,
outcast from his fellows, but strong enough to take care of himself. This
habit is reported to have suggested a stratagem by which omnivorous gypsy
folk catch crows. A live crow is spread-eagled on his back, with forked
pegs holding down his pinions. He flutters and cries, and other crows come
to investigate his case and presently attack him. With claws and beak he
seizes an assailant and holds him fast. The gypsy steps from hiding, and
secures and pinions the second crow. These two catch two more, the four
catch four more, and so on, until there are enough for dinner, or to take
into a town, where the crow-catcher stands before some respectable Hindu's
shop and threatens to kill the bird he holds in his hand. The Hindu pays a
ransom of a pice or two and the crow is released.
[Illustration: CALF AND CROWS]
When a child is sick, crows and other birds are bought by its mother and
female relatives to be released as a propitiation.
No decent person, of course, would dine on crows, but in Northern India the
rook is held to be _halāl_ or permitted for Mussulman food, and I have seen
them exposed for sale in Peshawar market.
In Bombay, rude street boys call Parsees "crows"--possibly a gibe at the
Parsee custom of exposing the dead in the Towers of Silence, where they are
eaten by birds.
Of many sayings about the crow it may be noted that for the daw in
peacock's feathers, they say in India of a fop, "the crow stuck a
pomegranate flower in his tail and thought himself a mighty swell." Also,
"the crow swaggered like a swan, forgetting his own gait." A crow fairy or
pĕri is a very dark woman. "Krishna's name in a crow's mouth!" and "Though
you put a crow in a parrot's cage he will still caw" express his
inferiority. Crows and herons are counted wicked birds; the former being
considered the more accomplished rascals.
But the main fact about the crow is his note, which is a ceaseless
_obligato_ accompaniment to all Indian life. A popular cradle song crooned
over thousands of children--_Aré koko, ja re koko_ = O crow! go crow--might
be paraphrased thus--
"Crow, crow! silence keep,
Plums are ripe in jungle deep;
Fetch a bushel fresh and cheap
For a babe who wants to sleep.
"Crow, crow! the peacock cries,
In the wood a thief there lies,
Would steal my baby from my eyes."
Also, they say to a child, "If you make a noise, the crow will fly away
with you." The baby-name, or rather women's name, for crow is _koko_.
All over the world women are apt at "stringing pretty words that make no
sense, and kissing full sense into empty words," but, while acknowledging
the elemental rightness of "woman talk" as a thing apart and a portion of
the God-given sweetness of life, it is not too fantastical to perceive in
the Indian development of something like a separate language,--_chhoti
boli_--literally little talk,--the clipped and childish speech of
imprisoned women of starved intellect, an evidence of a great social
disability. Affection, common sense, and wit may be and are freely
expressed in this talk, and it is passing rich in endearments, but to those
who look below the surface, it is one sign more of the disadvantage under
which the country is laid by the unnatural treatment, denial of
instruction, and seclusion of women. Yet, if the women of India have the
faults of an exaggerated domesticity, they have also its qualities, and
their estate should be understood before reformers rush to meddle with it.
To most Indian women crows stand as types of knavery, and there is sound
reason for this estimate. They are thieves, outcast scavengers, deceitful,
and, above all other creatures that hoard and hide, clever in concealing
things. "The swan (noble type) has flown away, the tiger (the king) has
made the crow (the knave) his minister," is a much-quoted verse from a
popular tale. Some intimacy with the bird is needed before one can fairly
appreciate this side of his character. I once reared from the nest a pair
of hill crows,--ravens in all but size,--who lived with me for three years,
till one after the other they were wooed away to mate. They were miracles
of naughtiness, delighting in sly destruction and odd turns of malice, ever
ready to peck at a servant's hurrying heel, and especially given to torment
a little dog who hated them. When he had a bone they came daintily stepping
together and concerted measures against him, exactly like the stage
villains of melodrama, manœuvring and skirmishing with keen enjoyment. On
his part, the dog learned to watch and rifle their hiding-places. Their
delight in bright objects was remarkable. The spoon in my early morning
tea, taken in the garden or verandah, was of even more interest to them
than my buttered toast, and they were never tired of tugging at my
watch-chain in order to get out the watch, a deeply coveted plaything.
Everything of this shining sort that came within reach was promptly buried,
dug up again, reburied with elaborate precautions, and forgotten after a
few days. In the hot weather they vastly enjoyed eating and playing with
pieces of ice, which they hid for future use. But ice is a treasure
fleeting as fairy gold, and the birds showed by the fussy action, sidelong
squints, and interrogative turns of the head which make them such diverting
comedians, how deeply they were puzzled by its disappearance. "Surely,
surely," one would seem to say as he turned up a corner of the matting, "I
hid a cold chunk of shining stuff here,--but _where_ is it? Never mind, I
will get another." So he would hop up to the table and take a fresh piece
from the glass finger-bowl, itself a great delight to the glitter-loving
birds. To the last the disappearance of the ice was a wonder. But, like
that of some other comedians, their conduct was generally low. The way in
which they allowed themselves to be sent to bed (an old gate in an
outhouse), though free to fly at will, pacing meekly as good as gold,
after a day of variegated crime, was their only lapse into real virtue.
The Roller.--The Roller (_Coracias Indica_), sometimes called in India the
blue jay, is sacred to Vishnu, who once assumed its form, and is caught to
be liberated at the Hindu Dasahra festival in Western India and at the
Dūrga Pūja in Bengal. "Undreamed-of wings he lifted," is a quotation always
brought to mind when this gray and sober-looking bird suddenly rises and
displays the turquoise and sapphire-tinted splendour of his wings.
The Maina.--The Maina (_Acridotheres tristis_) is sacred to the Hindu God
Ram Deo, and sits on his hand. In stories and talk the _maina_ is a popular
favourite, which is natural enough, for the bird is one of the handsomest
and most vivacious of the starlings; with an elegant tripping gait, like
that of a neatly built ballet-girl, alert and brave in bright yellow boots.
In flying, a white bar on the maina's wing produces a curious effect of
rotation. Like crows and sparrows, these birds go to roost in great
companies, and make a prodigious fuss before they settle to rest, as if
each bird were recounting the adventures of the day and all were talking at
once.
The Kite.--The common Kite (_Milvus govinda_) is often spoken of by
Europeans as the Brahminy Kite. Naturalists reserve this name for the
smaller chocolate-tinted bird with white head and breast, common near
rivers,--_Haliastur indus_. In former times the Kite was held in some
esteem by Muhammadans as a presage of victory to the army over which it
hovered, and called a blessed or auspicious spirit. Being an eagle in
miniature, the Kite perhaps inherited some of the respect born of the
ancient and oft-repeated story of an eagle hovering over a future king or
leader of men, which is told of Muhammad among many others. In recent
times the landing at Boulogne of Napoleon the Last, accompanied by a tame
eagle, furnishes a quaint echo of this old world fantasy.
This beautiful creature is almost as common as the crow, and its shrill
thin scream, from which the name _chīl_ seems to be derived, is, like the
crow's note, a constant and characteristic Indian sound, especially at
Calcutta in the spring time. Those who delight in the flight of birds,
which surely is one of the most fascinating things in life, may find less
interesting diversions than throwing fragments of food from a high roof
when a fleet of swift pirates soon assembles. Missed by one, rushed at from
opposite points by two or three at a time, no morsel is ever allowed to
reach the ground. The fierce sweeps and curves are splendid in grace,
strength, and skill, for there is deliberation and poise and a marvellous
avoidance of collision in this aerial tournament of rushing wings. When the
rains break there occurs a great jail delivery of winged white ants. At
this stage the termites are fat white little maggots, temporarily furnished
with wings which are shaken off when they find a resting-place. The birds
assemble in great numbers for this dainty feast, the kite with the rest.
One would think this wide-gaping bird would sail round in the insect cloud
open-mouthed, whale-fashion. But he uses his claws even for this minute
game, and the action of carrying them to his beak as he flies produces a
series of most graceful curtseying undulations.
The habits of the kite have suggested one or two sayings, as: "When do you
find meat in a kite's nest?"--a Hindu sneer at Mussulman spendthrifts; when
do you find money in a Mussulman's house? Of a lover devoted to a gay lady
the same expression is used. The _pâras_ or philosopher's stone is said in
a proverb to be in the kite's nest, a dark saying based on the kite's trick
of sometimes carrying off gold ornaments, or on the Muhammadan women's
superstition that young kites cannot see until there is gold in the nest.
The kite has some of the crow's delight in bright objects, and this belief
may be based on observation. A person who loiters round or hangs about a
house is said to hover like a kite. The word "hover," by the way, is, or
used to be, common for "wait" in North Yorkshire, as,--"If tha'rt titter up
t'sprunt, hovver,"--"If you get first up the hill, wait." A Delhi
street-cry raised by ragged fowlers is--"Free the kite on Tuesday." The
notion that it is auspicious to set captured birds free has been noticed
above. The practice in the Delhi region is for a mother to pay a pice to
the fowler, who swings the kite round over her child's head and lets it go.
This ceremony is thought most lucky when performed on a Tuesday or
Saturday. One of the Indian boys' games is called the kites' swoop; a
foolish person is styled a kite's chick, which really has a most gawky air;
and a child always running out in the street is spoken of as a noonday
kite, which still hovers in the heat when all sensible folk are indoors.
The kite is a notorious thief; no other creature is so splendidly equipped
for larceny, for no other can snatch so unerringly and escape so securely.
The confectioner's tray of sweetmeats, the dishes on their way from kitchen
to mess or dining-room, the butcher's shop, and the kitchen itself are all
liable to his sudden swoop. A recent case occurred of a registered letter
containing money being snatched from a postman's hand. I was once feeding
a pair of tame ravens from a plate in my hand when a kite, to their loud
and deep indignation, cleared and broke it and nearly knocked me over
forbye. This habit is made in a country story to point one of the hundred
gibes at the tricks of Indian goldsmiths. Four brethren of the craft were
overheard by a Wazir debating their business. Said one: "I always take four
annas toll out of every rupee's worth of gold in addition to the labour
charge." Said another: "I take eight annas," or half the value; the third
said, "I always take twelve annas," or three-quarters; but the fourth
cried,--"You are three fools, I always take all." The Wazir reported this
to his Raja, who said he should like to see how it could be done. So he
sent for that fourth goldsmith and ordered him to sit in the palace
verandah and make a necklace for the Queen. Three or four ounces of gold
were given to him and he set to work. But first, he drove a nail in the
verandah post, and when no one was near, he placed bits of meat on it and a
kite promptly learned the way thither. Then, in the evenings when he went
home, he made a brass chain exactly like the gold one and put it in his pot
of acid water. And one day in the presence of the Raja, who was on the
watch for deception, he placed the real chain there and presently took out
the false one and hung it on the nail to dry. The kite came and took it as
the craftsman was speaking to the Raja, who saw the theft. The goldsmith
made a great outcry, and bewailed the loss of so many days' labour, and the
Raja made it up to him handsomely and gave him gold to make another. When
the Raja's back was turned the goldsmith fished up the real chain from the
pickling pot and carried it away. Then the goldsmith repeated the trick;
which he finally confessed to the Wazir. And the Raja, being amiable, like
most princes in stories, was amused and generously rewarded the goldsmith
for his knavery.
Cranes and Herons.--The Sarus Crane (_Grus antigone_) is with some reason
regarded as a model of conjugal fidelity, from a belief that, if one of a
pair of these handsome birds is killed, the other pines and never mates
again. A Spanish proverb says the crane danced with the horse and got a
broken leg, but the dancing propensities of cranes and other long-legged
birds are seldom noticed in Indian talk, though the birds are common and
are often kept in public gardens and by Europeans as pets, and behave in
the fantastic fashion well observed and described in the American novel
_East Angels_. (The author of that excellent book speaks of the "candid
eyes" that taxidermists give to stuffed parrots. Indian observation notices
a want of candour in the living parrot's eye.) For grotesque devilry of
dancing, the Indian Adjutant beats creation. Don Quixote or Malvolio were
not half so solemn or mincing, and yet there is an abandonment and
lightness of step, a wild lift in each solemn prance, which are almost
demoniacal. If it were possible for the most angular, tall, and demure of
elderly maiden ladies to take a great deal too much champagne and then to
give a lesson in ballet-dancing, with occasional pauses of acute sobriety,
perhaps some faint idea might be conveyed of the peculiar quality of the
adjutant's movements. Such a conception is, of course, outrageously
impossible to a well-regulated Western mind, for it is only the French who
have thought of calling a lady a "_grue_." It is notable that of late years
Calcutta, which used to be regularly visited by adjutants, has been
deserted by them. I have heard natives say that they assemble in waste
places to hold councils and to dance.
A really fine expression is the ironical Indian phrase: "The saintly
heron," or "saintly as a heron." A heron poised on one leg in a remote
corner of a pool is the very image of a Hindu Sādhu or Muhammadan faqir,
pretending to be absorbed in holy meditation, while all the time he is
intent on the next fish or frog that may come within reach, the next piece
of fraud or villainy he can compass. The phrase is common, for there is
much of the hypocritical "meditation of the heron" in India as elsewhere.
Poultry.--The Brahma fowl of Western poulterers must have been named in
Europe, and is counted one of the unclean things in which those
unaccountable people, the English, take an unintelligible pleasure. Hindus
hear of its name with more surprise than satisfaction. It is amusing, by
the way, to note the easy confidence with which French and English writers
on India use the word Brahma, and speak of his temples. There are scarcely
any temples to Brahma in India, and his name is very seldom heard. Hindus,
as a rule, do not care for domestic poultry which are Levitically unclean,
nor for eggs which are not eaten by people of high caste. Rajputs are
passionately fond of cock-fighting, but do not fit steel spurs on their
birds; indeed, they blunt or dub the spurs which nature has given. The
fights are thus of interminable length, the poor creatures staggering round
each other, blind with blood round after round, long after they are too
much exhausted to strike a blow. The ring attendants fancy it restores the
creatures to put their heads into their mouths, a sickening detail not
unknown in the cock-pits of our English grandfathers. The Goanese
(Portuguese) and many Muhammadans, with some Hindus, are also fond of
cock-fighting, and daily large sums of money change hands over this sport.
Denunciation of a diversion of this kind is of little use, nor is it easy
to fix a point at which legislation can effectively intervene. Little by
little the barbarity will die out before the changes now taking place in
Indian civilisation. Moreover, although we English are apt to denounce and
preach, it does not lie in our mouths to say much. There are many
Englishmen who would be glad to take up cock-fighting, and it is only a
generation since a large number of good husbands and tender fathers were
ready to declare it the finest sport in the world. Blake indignantly
wrote--
"A game-cock clipped and armed for fight,
Doth the rising sun affright."
Yet Professor Wilson (Christopher North), also a Christian poet, wrote of
cock-fighting with enthusiasm, and pictures of birds thus hideously
disfigured are still shown in London shop windows with other sporting
prints. Sir Thomas More is farther off, but it is recorded that he was an
expert in the detestable game of tying a cock to a post and throwing sticks
at it.
A cock without spurs has the same name as a tuskless elephant,--_makhna_.
The old Joe Miller of the roast-fowl with only one leg, of which, when the
master remonstrates, the servant said it belonged to a breed of one-legged
fowls, is also an Indian story with the same conclusion. The servant shows
the master a fowl standing on one leg. The master cries sho! and the fowl
runs away with two. "Ah," says the servant, "you did not cry sho! to the
fowl in the dish!" Of a man who gives himself airs they say: "Can you have
no daylight without cock-crow?" An Afghān proverb quoted by Professor James
Darmesteter says: "Though the cock did not crow the dawn would still come."
"A hen dreams only of grain" is applied to a sordid person. "A whistling
woman and a crowing hen are neither fit for God nor men," is a mild English
saying, but the Indian version is infamous, for it says, "A hen's crow and
a woman's word no one trusts." If one Hindu wants to insult another (he has
of course an infinite variety of ways) he calls him a poulterer. A Bengal
proverb says the Bengal landlord treats his farmer tenants as the
Muhammadan treats fowls, feeds them only to kill them in the end. A
Muhammadan way of expressing that one is dissatisfied with his own havings,
is: "A house fowl (one you have bred yourself) is no better than pulse." To
one who hesitates to chastise a child they say: "The chick doesn't die from
a hen's kick." Domestic duties are regularly taught to the girls of a
household, so they say: "When the hen scratches, the chickens learn."
Poultry of all kinds are most cruelly handled by dealers and market people,
who never seem to think that a bird can feel. Turkeys are left to bleed to
death half a day by native servants with intent to bleach the flesh. A
Hindu would be shocked by such treatment of a parrot, but fowls are outside
the pale of regard.
The Goose.--A bird that seems to have lost some of its ancient repute is
the goose, which, though sacred in Buddhist and early Hindu times, finds
only a vague and legendary place in modern degradations of Hinduism.
The popular legend is that the goose was the _Vâhan_ of Brahma, on whom
fell the curse of Shiva, that henceforth he should not be an object of
popular worship. The gait of the goose or the swan (for the two birds seem
to be considered the same in the slip-shod talk of the people) is reckoned
as next graceful to those of the elephant or the partridge. They say in
serious praise of a lady's carriage that she walks like a goose. In Europe
we seem to look closer and discriminate the sort of lady with a goose gait,
nor do we count it for praise.
The Brahminy Duck.--The note of the ruddy sheldrake or Brahminy duck
(_Casarca rutila_) has won for this bird, which is always seen in pairs, a
place in Indian classic poetry as the type of longing but divided lovers.
Every night across the river the male cries, "Chakvi, may I come?" and the
female responds, "No, Chakva." Then the female mourns, "Chakva, may I
come?" and the answer is, "No, Chakvi." (The open Indian vowel sounds give
the plaintive bird's cry better than the English "May I come?") With a
super-subtle elaboration of the idea of nightly separation, the birds in
some verses I have heard, but cannot fully recall, are dolorously apart in
spirit even when put in the same cage. The simile was originally good in a
poetical sense, and is still alive to the Indian mind, which loves familiar
and accustomed turns; but its constant recurrence gives it a mechanical
creak to English ears.
The Peacock.--The peacock is the _Vâhan_ or vehicle, of Karttikeya, a god
of war, and also of Saraswati, goddess of learning, and is sacred. Many of
the troubles between villagers and English soldiers out shooting have
arisen from the ignorance of the latter of the veneration in which peacocks
are held.
In Guzerat, throughout Rajputana, and in many parts of the Central and
North-West Provinces, peacocks run wild, and are as common as rooks in
England. A rhyming proverb says, "The deer, the monkey, the partridge, and
the peacock are four thieves," but they are never punished for their
thefts. They are, however, sometimes caught alive by out-caste jungle folk
and brought to market with their eyes sewn up with filaments of their own
quills in order to prevent them fluttering and spoiling their plumage.
Solomon rebuked the vanity of the peacock's tail by an ungenerous and not
particularly apt reference to the ugliness of its legs, and his gibe is
still in men's mouths. They are in reality good legs, strong and capable;
but it is said, "The peacock danced gaily, till he saw his legs, when he
was ashamed and wept bitterly." In some places this saying is accounted for
by a story. The peacock and the partridge, or, as some say, the maina, had
a dancing match. In those days the peacock had very pretty feet. So when he
had danced, the partridge said, "Lend me your feet and see _me_ dance."
They changed feet, but instead of dancing, the deceitful partridge ran away
and never came back again. The saying is used as an expression of regret
for a foolish bargain. Ancient European bestiaries say when the peacock
wakes it cries and mourns its lost beauty. In Assam they say with reference
to vain people: "If I must die, I must die, but don't touch my top-knot,
said the peacock." Women when they dislike a sister woman call her a
peacock-legged person, and sometimes after sickness speak of their own
limbs in humorous disparagement as like those of the peacock, where an
English countrywoman would refer to pipe-stems or bean-sticks. Yet "peacock
gaited" is a poetical expression for a graceful carriage, and "a neck like
a peacock" is a common compliment to a beautiful woman.
The peacock is credited with a violent antipathy to snakes, and is said to
dance them to death, but a vigorous cobra is scarcely likely to be tired
out by a bird. In the excitement of a fight the peacock would probably
dance round its enemy, and the engagement would be long and doubtful. That
the bird is a recognised enemy of snakes in England as well as in India is
shown in the interesting volume _On Surrey Hills_, edited by Mrs. J. A.
Owen, where gardens and grounds infested by vipers are said to be
infallibly cleared by peacocks.
This bird is said to scent the coming rain, and to scream and dance with
delight at its approach. "Frogs and peacocks are refreshed by the rain." In
Europe the bird's cry is a rain sign, but we do not credit it with a
longing for moisture.
In London drawing-rooms peacock feathers are considered unlucky. In India
it would seem to be otherwise. I once saw a Hindu servant limping round
with a peacock feather tied on his leg. "Yes, sir, I have a bad pain in my
leg and this is very good for it." A spell or _mantra_ must have
accompanied the tying, but this I was not privileged to learn. _Taus_, the
Arabic (and Greek) word for a peacock, is current as well as the Hindi
_Mor_. A pretty form of guitar, shaped and painted like a peacock, is known
as a taus.
The Owl.--There are birds of evil as well as of good omen, and the owl is
here, as elsewhere, a byword of ill luck. "Only owls live alone," is a
proverb flung at unsociable people, and a man is said to be as drunk as an
owl, while a stupid fellow is most unjustly described as "A son of an owl."
Of humble folk and their obscure lives it is said, "Only an owl knows the
worth of an owl." "What does a phœnix know of an owl?" It has not occurred
to the Oriental jester to speak of a boiled owl in connection with
intoxication, but when a husband is abjectly submissive to his wife her
friends say she has given him boiled owl's flesh to eat. There are owls of
most varieties in India, but a small owl like the cue owl of Italy is the
most common and raises a cheerful chuckle at twilight.
In Ceylon the cry of a large owl known as the Devil bird is believed to be
a certain herald of death. Nocturnal habits are all that the universal
world, including Hindus and Muhammadans, can bring against the owl as a
bird of fate. In India, however, though the owl's cry may be dreaded as
portending a desolate home, nobody is idiotic enough to kill so valuable a
vermin destroyer. That pinnacle of stupidity is the exclusive right of
English game preservers.
The Pigeon.--The pigeon, the bird of Mecca, is almost as much a Hindu as a
Muhammadan bird, and was chosen by Shiva, the third person of the Hindu
Trinity, for Incarnation as Kapoteshwara. I was assured not long ago by a
Hindu devotee that in a small temple near the Kashmir frontier, the image
of Mahadeo at times takes life as a pair of pigeons which flutter and
disappear in the roof. In cities where Hindus preponderate, large flocks of
pigeons are regularly fed by Hindu merchants and shopkeepers. The traveller
is reminded, by the roar of their wings, of Venice and Constantinople, and
if he went farther north he would find them cherished in the villages of
Kābul, where they are supposed to pay for their keep by fertilising the
soil. Pigeon fanciers are to be found in most towns of Northern India and
are generally Muhammadan. They talk of various breeds, and especially
prize the Shirāzi and the small strutting white fan-tail, on whose
coral-coloured legs they frequently fasten jingling bangles of brass; but
they seem to have little of the English skill and care in breeding
varieties which Darwin found so full of suggestion. The flight is pretty to
watch; it is possible to bet on some incidents of it, and it is also
possible to beguile some of a neighbour's to join your own flock. But, like
quail fighting, it is not considered a respectable pursuit; and though most
boys would like to keep pigeons, respectability is in India as stony and
implacable as in the West. A popular proverb says the housewife keeps the
parrot, the lover keeps the avadavat, and the thief keeps pigeons. In the
English Midlands, thirty years ago, pigeon-flyers were (and are still)
called disreputable, and you were supposed to be able to distinguish the
scamp from his respectable fellow-workmen by the drake's-tail curl of his
hair at the back, the result of continually looking aloft at his birds. It
is curious that precisely the same notion obtains here in India.
Although the "homing" propensity of the pigeon is not systematically
cultivated and the bird is not regularly employed as a messenger, there are
many stories to show that this characteristic trait is recognised. Nor are
they always sentimental love tales. A Bengal legend tells the pitiful fate
of a Hindu Raja, the last of his race, attacked by Muhammadan invaders. He
went bravely out to meet them, carrying with him a pigeon whose return to
the palace was to be regarded by his family as an intimation of his defeat,
and a signal to put themselves to death and to burn their home. He gained
the victory, but while he stooped to drink in the river after the fatigues
of the battle, the bird escaped and flew home. The Raja hurried after, but
was only in time to throw himself on the still burning pyre.
A common object on the low sky-line of Indian towns of the plain is a light
bamboo lattice about six feet square on the top of a tall bamboo pole. This
is a pigeon perch, and in the early mornings unkempt pigeon-flyers are seen
on the house roofs waving a lure made of rag tied to a stick and whistling
through a mouth-call (like that of the English Punch and Judy men) to
attract to their roosts the flock of pigeons circling overhead. The
evolutions of pigeons in the air, their wheeling and turning on the wing,
and the pretty manner of their settling from flight are all so beautiful
that it seems stupid to associate a taint of human blackguardism with them.
The Koel.--We English call the cuckoo a blithe newcomer and a vernal
harbinger, but we do not, because of the bird's association with the sweet
o' the year, consider his song the perfection of all music. A Western ear
finds no more in the tune of that cuculine bird, the Koel (_Eudynamys
honorata_) than a tiresome iteration of one or two clear, high, and
resonant notes. Yet Oriental poetry, algebraic in its persistent use of a
limited number of symbols, has officially adopted the Koel as the figure
for exquisite sound; so the voice of your beloved, the performances of a
musical artiste, and all best worth hearing in life are posted under this
heading. A Delhi shoemaker or a Lucknow embroiderer can tell you of other
bird music, but they have not read much classic poetry and hear with their
ears. The Englishman in India has a grudge against the Koel; listening with
modified rapture to notes that warn him to put up his punkah, overhaul his
thermantidote, and prepare for the long St. Laurence penance of an Indian
summer. And he thinks longingly of an English spring.
"Ah! Koel, little Koel, singing on the _siris_ bough,
In my ears the knell of exile your ceaseless bell-like speech is,
Can you tell me aught of England or of spring in England now?"
Natives say crows hate the Koel because it selects their nests for its
foundling eggs, which is very probable. I have seen crows mobbing a Koel,
but then crows are like London street boys, and will mob anybody of
unfamiliar aspect.
The Coppersmith.--The Coppersmith bird is another noisy herald of spring.
This is the handsome crimson-breasted barbet (_Xantholæma hæmacephala_),
and its cry of tock, tock, fills the air as completely as the sound of a
hammer on a brazen vessel. It has the same cadence, and with each loud beat
the bird's head is swung to right and left alternately. Sir Edwin Arnold in
his _Light of Asia_ gives an Indian Spring picture in a few words:--
"... In the mango-sprays
The sun-birds flashed; alone at his green forge
Toiled the loud Coppersmith...."
But when you are down with fever and headache you heartily wish the noisy
bird would take a holiday or go on strike.
The Sparrow.--To the native of India the sparrow seems to stand as the type
of a thing of naught, an intrusive feathered fly to be brushed aside--but
on no account to be starved or harmed. Our bird is a size smaller than his
Western brother, and is tolerated both by Hindu and Muhammadan. In mosque
courts one sometimes sees pretty troughs made of brick with divisions for
water and food; and in trees near shrines, or over the places where
devotees sit, earthen saucers are slung with food and water, all for the
sparrow. A Hindu proverb quoted in Fallon's Dictionary says: "God's birds
in God's field! eat, birds, eat your bellies full." This pious and kindly
word is easily reconciled in practice with a just appreciation of the
essential triviality and impertinence of the bird. A large toll is daily
taken all over the country from field and garden, and the equally
accessible grain-dealer's basket. The most devout Hindu alive waves them
off from his stores, for he also must live.
[Illustration: TERRA-COTTA SEED AND WATER TROUGH (FROM A PUNJAB VILLAGE
MOSQUE)]
But though the sparrow is a nuisance, it is seldom you hear the bird
reckoned a downright plague, as is undoubtedly the case in America, where
it is a type of the worst kind of immigrant from which the country has
suffered. The reason may be that the same law of protection which leaves
the sparrow free to plunder, is also extended to the hawk, the shrike, the
weasel, and the wild cat, who keep the balance fairly even among them. Yet
when you listen closely you may hear, in spite of the vast Oriental
tolerance, many an angry word about bird depredations.
London sparrows are said to be familiar, but when compared with their
Indian brethren, their manners are marked by dignity and cold reserve.
Being much given to marriage, they make a tremendous fuss over their
housekeeping, and when in search of a nesting-place nothing is sacred to
them. Above all, the nest must be sheltered from the heat, and the coolest
places in the land are the interiors of men's houses. An Englishman's house
is the coolest of all, so newly-joined couples, conversing loudly, are
constantly finding their way indoors, creeping like mice through bath-water
channels and under the bamboo blinds that keep out flies, bringing with
them straw and other rubbish for their untidy beds. When making a morning
call, you may stumble into a darkened drawing-room to find the lady of the
house perched on a chair, madly thrashing up to the roof-beams with a
carriage-whip, while a servant pulls the long cord of an upper window,
crying "sho!" A bird in church is a rare and delightful incident to a bored
child in the West, but the Indian sparrow perches on the organ-pipes in
full blast, and chatters loudly through the sermon. Its note is a constant
part of the out-door orchestra of Indian life, accompanying the caw of the
crow, the thin squeal of the squirrel and scream of the kite, the groan of
the Persian wheel, the wailing song of the ox-driver at the well, the creak
of the ungreased cart axle, and the bark of the village dog.
Falconry.--Falconry, which is still a favourite sport in Sind and Northern
India, is too extensive to be more than glanced at. The literature of the
subject is just as fantastic as the writings of our forefathers in Europe;
as in our old falconry books, hawks are broadly described as light or
dark-eyed, round or long-winged, noble or ignoble, and the sport is
considered in the highest degree aristocratic. Sir Richard F. Burton is the
only English writer who can claim to be an authority on the subject in its
literary as well as in its practical aspect. The identity of the Indian
apparatus of the sport with that of Europe strikes even the uninstructed.
The hawk-hood of soft deerskin, prettily embroidered with silk and gold,
the falconer's gloves, jesses, lures, and hawk-bells are still regularly
made in the Punjab, with one or two trifling variations. European pictures
show the lure fitted with portions of a bird's wing, which are absent from
the Indian lure, and the falconer goes afield with his hawks perched on a
hoop slung round his body, while here, when more than one are carried, they
travel on a horizontal pole. Staying once at the chief town of a native
state I wondered at the number of hawks carried about, and concluded that
when a man wanted an excuse for a stroll he went to the Raja's mews and got
a hawk to take out for an airing on his wrist. ("A man looks so fond
without a dog" said the collier in Mr. C. Keene's _Punch_ picture.) During
a gathering of chiefs at Lahore to meet Lord Dufferin and the Duke of
Connaught, falcons and falconers came to swell the retinues of the Rajas,
and I observed the constables on duty at the museum in my charge wanted to
make the men leave their hawks outside when they came to see that
institution. A stuffed bird in a glass case might, of course, tempt a
hawk, but when hooded the creature is as well behaved as a sleeping child.
[Illustration: UNHOODED]
The attendant circumstance of Indian falconry is not without its charm,
especially during the clear cold weather of the Punjab winter. I remember
riding to a hawking party across a wide sandy plain where cultivation was
scanty, a fresh wind blowing, and in the far distance the snowy range of
the Himálaya sparkled white against the intense blue. A group of elephants,
with howdahs and trappings blazing in colour and gold, furnished the vast
wind-swept spaces with a touch of colour, and even the blue and red
patterns daubed on their gigantic foreheads looked delicate and pretty. The
strange heraldic monsters in beaten silver with glass eyes that supported
the howdahs, and the great red cloths splashed with gold embroidery, would
have been garish at close quarters; but here they suited perfectly with the
cavalcade of horsemen attired in scarlet and gold, the leashed dogs
straining and snarling, and the motley crowd of beaters, chill in the
morning sunshine. The hawks sharply turned their heads in expectation,
tugging and straining at their jesses like anchored ships in a gale. But
when all was over, the bustards found and flown at had escaped without
scathe, and one of the hawks was lost. As a man who has never been able to
find pleasure in the chase, and who never possessed a gun, I found no
personal fault with this issue, but when people set forth to do a thing
they ought to do it well.
Hawks must often be lost; for a countryside proverb about kangni, the small
Italian millet, says that its cultivation is "as risky as keeping a hawk."
I have heard of flights where the hawk does all that is set down for him in
the books, and I have watched the careful training of hawks to come back to
the lure, where they are rewarded with a bit of newly killed crow, etc.,
but I strongly suspect the best of the business is the riding and the
company. Any one in the habit of looking at birds in India may see free
hawking enough,--the shrike, which in a town garden brings down a sparrow
nearly as big as himself, the gallant and tigerish sparrow-hawk, and on far
hillsides falcons of two or three kinds.
Of a sponging hanger-on they say, "You train your hawk on another man's
fist." "Doesn't know cock-fighting and has taken to hawking!" is a good
jape at a common kind of fool.
Bird Crumbs.--An odd fancy is current about the sandpiper. It is believed
to sleep on its back under the impression that it is supporting the
firmament with its slender legs. There are human bipeds who think
themselves almost as necessary to the universe. A black-and-white
kingfisher is called the dizzy or giddy one from its sudden, vertiginous
plunge into the water after its prey. A curious parallel in nomenclature is
shown in the water-wagtail, which haunts brook and pond sides,--places
where clothes are washed,--and is called the _dhobin_ or washer-woman. In
France the same bird, from the same habit, is known as the _lavandière_.
The Shia Muhammadans have woven many legends round their martyr heroes,
Hussain and Hassan, slain at Kerbela. The handsome King crow or drongo
(_Dicrurus ater_) is said to have brought water to the dying Imâm Hussain,
while the dove, dipping her beak in his sacred blood, flew to Medina, and
thus bore the news of his martyrdom.
In Mr. F. S. Growse's translation of the Rāmāyana of Tūlsi Dass--a book
which ought to be studied by those who care to know what the best current
Hindu poetry is like, in its sugared fancy, its elaborate metaphors, its
real feeling for the heroic and noble, and also its tedious, unaccidented
meandering--there occurs a pretty description of the Army of Love, in which
some of the birds take parts outside the stereotyped roles occasionally
referred to in foregoing paragraphs--"the murmuring cuckoos are his
infuriated elephants, and the herons his bulls, camels, and mules; the
peacocks, _chukors_ (red-legged partridges), and parrots are his
war-horses; the pigeons and swans his Arab steeds; the partridges and
quails his foot-soldiers; but there is no describing the whole of Love's
host." A sentence which might have stood at the beginning closes the
long-drawn description--"His (Love's) greatest strength lies in woman: any
one who can escape her is a mighty champion indeed."
Bats.--Of bats--the leathern-winged jackals of the air--there is not much
to be said, for although India has an immense number and variety of these
wonderful and most useful creatures, the people seem scarcely to notice
them. It takes a naturalist to admire and appreciate darkness-loving
animals; and among Indian bats there is a fine field, especially those
adorned by nature with elaborate leaf-like processes on the nostrils,
strange and fantastic beyond telling.
Those, however, who have been received in dull houses will enjoy the fine
irony of a saying which runs, "The bat had a guest (and said), 'I'm
hanging, you hang too.'" No need to expound this five-word jewel, since
most of us know houses whose inmates seem to hang in a torpid row, and
where we resign ourselves on entering to be hung up in a similar sleepy
fashion. There is also a story about Solomon, the birds, and the bats, but
it has no very effective point. I know of no saying in any tongue
acknowledging the great utility of the bat in keeping down an excess of
insect life.
The large fruit-eating bat or flying-fox is a noble creature, looming
largest, perhaps, when in the still breathless evenings he beats his
noiseless way high over the wan waters of Bombay harbour or the adjacent
creeks, dark against a sky in which there lingers a lurid flush of crimson
and orange. The lowest castes eat flying-foxes, which are probably of
excellent flavour, seeing they grow fat on the best of the fruit. They are
regularly eaten in the Malay Archipelago, and Mr. Wallace says that when
properly dressed they have no offensive fumet, and taste like hare. I once
kept one, but he could scarcely be called an amusing pet, his strong point
being his enormous appetite for bananas. On one occasion he escaped and
began to fly away, but promptly came back, for he was mobbed by flights of
crows, who had never seen such a creature before. Crows go early to bed,
and the appearance of this monster bat in their own daylight seemed to be
an outrage on their rights and feelings. So they chivied him--if I may be
allowed the expression--much as the street boys are said to have chivied
Jonas Hanway when he appeared in London streets with the first umbrella.
The flying-fox was in a great fright, knowing that a single stroke of a
crow's beak would ruin the membrane of his vans, more delicate than any
silk ever stretched on a "paragon" frame.
In pairing time flying-foxes are lively all day, though they do not fly
abroad, and the trees in which they hang in great reefs and clusters are so
noisy with their quarrelling, screaming, and fighting, as to be a serious
nuisance to a quiet village.
CHAPTER III
OF MONKEYS
"His hide was very mangy, and his face was very red,
And ever and anon he scratched with energy his head.
His manners were not always nice, but how my spirit cried
To be an artless _Bandar_ loose upon the mountain side!"
R. K.
[Illustration: MONKEY GOD]
Some of the respect in which these animals are held by Hindus is a
reflection of the popularity of Hanumān, or (in Southern India) of Mâruti,
the monkey general of the great Hindu epic--the devoted henchman of Ram
Chandra, and a marvel of valour and address combined with gentleness. He
has now become a god, and is one of the most widely worshipped of Hindu
deities. Pictures and rude images are to be seen of him everywhere, but he
is not represented in the more ancient Hindu sculptures. A notion exists
among Hindus that the English may be his descendants through a female
servant of the demon king, who had charge of Sita in captivity, and who
treated the prisoner so well that Rama blessed her, prophesying that she
should become the mother of a race that would possess the land, and whom
Hanumān took to wife. This can scarcely be made out from the poem, but the
tradition exists. Others, again, say that the English came from the "monkey
army," which unlovely phrase is occasionally used to describe the British
nation.
But, while the enthusiastic cult of Hanumān as a divinity is a
comparatively modern development of Hinduism, the fondness of Hindus for
monkeys is of very ancient date. Ælian describes the offerings of rice
which are still customary, and at sacred places, as Benares, Ajodhia, and
Muttra, they are regularly fed, and it is regarded as an abominable act of
sacrilege to kill one. A large temple at Benares under the invocation of
Durga (Devi, Kali, etc.) has swarms of monkeys attached to it, but they do
not appear, as might be expected, to be usually attendant on shrines of the
Monkey God himself. They naturally cluster round groves frequented by
devotees of various kinds for the sake of scraps of food which they are
sure to receive there, and because they are safe from molestation.
Muhammadan saints as well as Hindu _sâdhus_ show kindness to these
creatures, and it is quite intelligible that their gambols should serve to
amuse the large and languid leisure of professional holiness.
[Illustration: LANGŪRS AT HOME]
The brown _macacus rhesus_ is the commonest type and most frequently seen
both in the hills and plains. Ælian in his description mixes up the Macaque
with the true Hanumān, the tall, long-tailed, black-faced, white-whiskered
_langūr_ (_Presbytes illiger_), clad in an overcoat of silver gray. The
latter has a face that reminds one of Mr. Joel Harris's "Uncle Remus," and
is, in his way, a king of the jungle, nor is he so frequently met with in
confinement as his brown brother. In some parts of India troops of langūrs
come bounding with a mighty air of interest and curiosity to see the
railway trains pass, their long tails uplifted like notes of interrogation;
but frequently, when fairly perched on wall or tree alongside, they seem to
forget all about it, and avert their heads as you go by with an affectation
of languid indifference. This may be a mark of the superiority of the
monkey mind, or a sign that some threads were dropped when its fabric was
woven. The black gibbon or _hooluck_ (_hylobates hooluck_) is better known
in Bengal and Assam, and is well adapted for captivity, if a pair can be
secured, and the keeper does not object to a gentle, mournful, and timid
animal, the spirit of the complaining dove in the form of a black djinn or
demon with a voice like a pack of hounds in full cry. The hooluck is
monogamous, and seems to have few of the vulgar monkey vices, but is a
depressing companion. In Assam, too, is found a dainty little monkey
familiarly known as "the shame-faced one"--a gentle, bashful, large-eyed
creature, with a quaint trick of hiding its face in its hands and hanging
its head like a timid child. It has a peculiarly soft and lustrous pelage
of fine colour and texture.
Under a benign rule of protection the monkey increases rapidly, and, being
a daring and mischievous pilferer, becomes a serious nuisance. One may hold
a creature sacred and yet be thoroughly alive to all the faults of its
character, and the monkey in ordinary talk is used pretty much as it is in
Europe to point morals against wanton mischief, helplessness, and evil
behaviour generally. Nor is it only in field and garden that its
depredations are felt. Indian shops have no doors or windows, but are like
large cupboards open to the street, in which food grains and other articles
are exposed for sale; and in towns where Hindus preponderate and a busy
current of trade has not swept the streets, bulls, calves, parakeets,
sparrows, and monkeys take tolls which the dealer would fain prevent, but
that he is few and fat, while the depredators are many and active. A stout
grocer nodding among his store baskets, while a monkey, intently watching
the sleeper's face, rapidly stuffs his cheek pouches with grain, is a
common sight, as well as a comical one. Of late years the tradesmen who
form the bulk of the members of our municipalities have felt that there
are too many Hanumāns abroad, and have ventured on proceedings that would
not have been tolerated in the days of complete Brahmanical ascendency.
Numbers of the marauders have been caught, caged, and despatched on bullock
carts to places many miles distant. There they have been let loose, but, as
the empty carts returned, the monkeys, quick to perceive and defeat the
plan of their enemies, bounded gaily alongside, and trooped in through the
city gates with the air of a holiday party returning from a picnic. From
some river-side towns boat-loads have been taken across the Ganges; but
they dislike being marooned, and when they have failed to board the
returning boats, have found others to carry them back. Railways, which have
done much for Indian progress, offer facilities for deportation which
monkey-ridden municipalities have been glad to seize. The stationmaster at
Saharunpore was recently troubled by a telegram advising him of the
despatch of cars laden with monkeys, which he was requested to send out to
be freed on the adjacent Sewalik hills. But the cages were broken in
unloading the freight and the crowd got loose. Saharunpore is an Indian
Crewe or Swindon in a small way, with a railway establishment, a Government
Botanical garden and large private fruit gardens. The exiles invaded the
busy workshops and lost their tempers, monkey fashion, among the driving
bands and machinery, nor were they easily driven out. A large male was seen
pulling the point-levers of a siding with the sudden petulance of his kind;
and another established himself between the double roofs of one of the
inspection carriages used by railway officers on tour as houses, stealing
from the pantry such trifles as legs of mutton, corkscrews, lamp glasses
and dusters,--articles for which a monkey can have but little use. The bulk
of the company trooped into the gardens of the town, where the proprietors,
being mainly Muhammadans with no respect for Hanumān, took measures of
their own against the invasion.
An amusing case of monkey plunder occurred some years ago at Simla. The
chief confectioner of the place had prepared a magnificent bride-cake,
which was safely put by in a room that, like most Simla rooms, looked on
the steep hillside. It is of little use, however, locking a door when the
window is left open. So when they came to fetch the cake, the last piece of
it was being handed out of the window by a chain of monkeys who had
whitened the hillside with its fragments. A theft of this kind is mainly
mischievous, for the wild monkey dislikes food mixed with butter, nor does
he greatly care for sugar. A bride-cake, too, looks (and is to my humble
taste) about as edible as a plaster cast, and one can scarcely understand
how they discovered it was meant to be eaten. The creature has a passion
for picking things to pieces. A flower or a fragile toy will amuse a monkey
for a long time. If a bird falls into its hands it will not be released
till it is plucked of every feather. If the bird resents the process, the
monkey with an unconcerned air rubs its head vigorously on the ground. It
would not be difficult to train a monkey to pluck fowls for use in the
kitchen. It is often said that the monkey kills snakes by grinding the head
on a stone, occasionally spitting on it, nor is the feat incredible to one
who has observed the constant habit of rubbing things on the ground and
holding them up for inspection. Yet in spite of this belief, a popular
saying, expressing a dilemma or an opportunity that cannot be turned to
profit, is--"Like a snake in a monkey's hand." He is afraid of it, but he
will not let go. Natives also say that monkeys rob birds' nests and destroy
eggs and young in pure malice. The fastidiousness of the wild monkey's
taste is curious, considering the precarious existence it leads. Daily for
some months my family and myself were interested in a troop of wild
monkeys, which we regularly fed, trying them with very various food. Once
we gave them biscuits which, from lying in a dealer's shop, had acquired
that peculiarly stale, tinny flavour which Anglo-Indians know too well.
They had been accustomed to eat the same kind of biscuit when fresh, and
scrambled as usual for the fragments, but after the first bite they made
comical mouths of dislike, spat out vigorously, rubbed the biscuit on their
sides, on the ground, examined it carefully, and seemed to conclude,--"Yes,
it's the same as yesterday," tried again, and then chattered and grinned in
wrath and disgust. But they soon learned to discriminate by smell merely.
Like the over-wise crow, which is apt to outwit itself by futile cunning,
the monkey is most ingeniously suspicious. Our friends grew bold with
encouragement, but their manners were never friendly; with the exception of
one which had evidently escaped from confinement. We managed to entrap the
creature, and having removed its hateful collar, set it free again. My
daughter could coax this experienced person into a room and it would open
her hand to take grain, keeping a sharp look-out on the open door. All the
rest were keenly suspicious, and irritable. They seemed to circumvent each
morsel and, having won it, defied us with angry eyes to take it back
again, regarding our free gift as a triumph of their own finesse. This is
natural enough when we consider that for generations the monkey folk have
been chased from field and garden plot with shouting. They were in no fear
for their lives, and had learned the very human satisfaction of defying an
enemy from a safe distance.
This shallow cunning has deeply impressed the minds of the people. They say
it is absolutely impossible to poison a monkey. For ages this belief has
been rooted in the minds of Orientals. Al Masudi, who compiled his Arabic
encyclopædia--"meadows of gold and mines of gems"--in the tenth century,
wrote that most Chinese and Hindu kings keep wise but dumb monkeys as
tasters for their tables, relying implicitly on their judgment of what is
poisoned and what is wholesome. A native gentleman told me of a cultivator
in the hills whose crops and garden were so seriously injured that he
determined to get rid of his enemies. So he daily set out platters of
boiled rice which they greedily ate. When they had learned the habit of
coming in crowds, he one day set out rice poisoned with a tasteless drug.
He heard a great chatter and whining round his treacherous platters, and
saw a council sitting round the untasted food in earnest debate. Presently
they rose and scampered away, but soon returned, each bearing twigs and
leaves of a plant which their instinct taught them was an antidote to the
poison. With these they stirred and mixed the rice, which they afterwards
ate with their usual relish, returning the next morning for more,
absolutely unharmed. This story is also told, _mutatis mutandis_, of an
attempt made by a Sikh noble, Sirdar Lehna Singh Majithia, to poison
troublesome monkeys at the sacred town of Hurdwar. When you believe that
monkeys are capable of speech and only refrain from speaking for fear that
they would be made to work, it is easy to credit them with a knowledge of
chemistry. Belief in their ability to speak is widely current in India, and
the notion is not unknown in the West.
But while native credulity will swallow the impossible with ease, native
observation is not without keenness. The inability of the monkey to make
for itself a shelter against the heavy rains of the country is noted in
proverbs. It is really curious that in the Simla region, where are many
built-out roads forming dry refuges of quite natural aspect, they are never
resorted to. Troops of monkeys will sit shivering for hours in driving
storms within a few yards of covered spaces, which seem as if specially
provided for their shelter and comfort.
Their daily life is interesting to watch. The scheme seems to be
patriarchal with a touch of military organisation, for they move and
plunder in a sort of formation, and the patriarch is at once
commander-in-chief and effective fighting force. Its main fact is the
tyranny of the leading male of each troop, who grows to a great size, with
immensely powerful shoulders. He develops large canine teeth, which some
observant Hindu draughtsmen take care to grace their pictures of Hanumān
withal. These are used unsparingly on the younger male members of the
troop, in fighting for his place of power, and on disobedient females. "The
demon" was the familiar name we gave to a leader with whom we were well
acquainted. He seemed to be always angry and was easily moved to a paroxysm
of rage, when he used worse language than any permitted to man, for there
was a savage force and variety in his grunting fury which made one
thankful he was untranslatable. He took the lion's share of everything,
especially resenting that the rising bachelors of the troop should have a
chance. Mothers and babies were merely cuffed aside from a morsel, but
there was ruthless war between him and all who might become his rivals. No
more perfect picture of headlong, desperate terror can be imagined than a
young man-monkey plunging and bounding in reckless flight down the
hillside, pursued as he screams by a livid and grunting elder. Natives may
well call the monkey sire _Maharaja_, for he is the very type and
incarnation of savage and sensual despotism. They are right, too, in making
their Hanumān red, for the old male's face is of the dusky red you see in
some elderly, over-fed, human faces.
Like human Maharajas, they have their tragedies and mayhap their romances.
One morning there came a monkey chieftain, weak and limping, having
evidently been worsted in a severe fight with another of his own kind. One
hand hung powerless, his face and eyes bore terrible traces of battle, and
he hirpled slowly along with a pathetic air of suffering, supporting
himself on the shoulder of a female,--a wife, the only member of his clan
who had remained faithful to him after his defeat. We threw them bread and
raisins, and the wounded warrior carefully stowed the greater part away in
his cheek pouch. The faithful wife, seeing her opportunity, sprang on him,
holding fast his one sound hand, and opening his mouth she deftly scooped
out the store of raisins. Then she sat and ate them very calmly at a safe
distance, while he mowed and chattered in impotent rage. He knew that
without her help he could not reach home, and was fain to wait with what
patience he might till the raisins were finished. It was a sad sight, but,
like more sad sights, touched with the light of comedy. This was probably
her first chance of disobedience or of self-assertion in her whole life,
and I am afraid she thoroughly enjoyed it. Then she led him away,--possibly
to teach him more salutary lessons of this modern and "advanced" sort, so
that at the last he would go to another life with a meek and chastened
soul.
Monkey mothers are tender to their little ones, with a care that endears
them to the child-loving Oriental. The babies are quaint little mites with
the brown hair that afterwards stands up crest-wise, parted in the middle
of their brows; their wistful faces are full of wrinkles, and their mild
hazel eyes have a quick glancing timidity, that well suits their pathetic,
lost, kitten-like cry. Yet even in the forest there are frisky matrons. I
have seen a mother monkey, disturbed in her gambols on the ground by the
whining of a tiny baby left half-way up an adjacent tree, suddenly break
off, and hastily shinning up the tree, snatch up the baby, hurry to the
very topmost branch, where she plumped it down as who should
say,--"Tiresome little wretch!" and then come down to resume her play. Thus
is a mischievous midshipman mast-headed, and thus is the British baby sent
up to the nursery while mamma amuses herself. Natives say that when monkey
babies die the mothers often go mad, and that in the excess of their
affection they occasionally squeeze their offspring to death. It is at
least certain that a mother monkey will carry with her for weeks the dried
and dead body of her little one, nursing and petting it as if it were
alive. In defence of the little ones the sires will fight savagely, as is
their duty. I knew a fat fox terrier, the dream of whose life was to catch
a monkey. Once it came true, and for half a minute, said a man who saw, he
held a baby monkey. I was indoors at the time, but as the dog passed me to
take refuge under a chair, I knew from his solemn silence that something
had happened. The leader monkey had fallen upon him and inflicted three
frightful bites--more like deep knife-cuts than the work of teeth--which
seemed likely to prove fatal; but first-rate surgical skill was available,
and Bob was saved to carefully avoid monkeys in future.
A quaint episode of our acquaintanceship with monkey folk was the arrival
during one of our levees of one of the wandering performers who lead about
tame monkeys with a goat that serves them as charger. The wild monkeys drew
off at first suspiciously, but when the man sat down to his performance and
made their tame brethren dance, put on strange raiment, and mount the goat,
they crept closer with horrified curiosity and evident disgust. The tame
monkeys off duty regarded their free kinsmen with listless indifference,
and the artiste at work never seemed to glance at them, though they watched
him with jealous and angry eyes, much, I imagine, as labourers on strike
watch blacklegs.
There is a belief that during severe winters wild monkeys, instead of
furtively hanging about the grocers' shops and watching their chance to
steal, come into Simla streets in bands and stand whining like beggars
asking for alms. But there is only native authority for this story. It is
just possible they may have been so hard pressed as to seek human help, but
it is an immense step for such wild and distrustful creatures to take. Some
shopkeepers habitually feed them, and they may have whined at a place where
they missed their daily dole.
A wistful, watchful melancholy seems to be the normal mood of the mature
monkey, broken by sudden flashes of interest which change as suddenly into
indifference or abstraction. Few animals seem to spend so much time in
sitting and looking about them, while only the birds can command more lofty
posts of observation. Among men, some sailors and many Orientals have a
similar faculty of tranquil outlooking. But the sudden flash of interest in
a triviality and its abrupt cessation remind one more of lunacy than of
sane humanity. Their life is hard and hungry, and as the creatures lope
disconsolately along in the rain, or crouch on branches with dripping backs
set against the tree trunk as a shelter from the driving storm, they have
the air of being very sorry for themselves. Consumption is not unknown
among them, and a monkey's cough, heard through the drip of the forest on a
wet night, is a dismal sound. But when the sun shines the younger ones play
like schoolboys. They have a game like the English boys' cock of the
dung-hill or king of the castle, but instead of pushing each other from the
top of a knoll or dust-heap, the castle is a pendent branch of a tree. The
game is to keep a place on the bough, which swings with their weight as
with a cluster of fruit while the players struggle to dislodge one another,
each, as he drops, running round and climbing up again to begin anew. This
sport is kept up for an hour at a time with keen enjoyment, and when one is
nimble as a monkey it must be splendid fun.
[Illustration: YOUNG MONKEYS AT PLAY]
The way of a ship on the sea may be strange, but the path of a monkey
through tree-land is no less surprising. At one moment a creature is in
tranquil meditation on the creation of the world or the origin of evil, at
the next it has thrown itself backward apparently into illimitable space,
but at the right instant a bough is seized and the animal swings to
another and another with infallible certainty. The larger langūr does not
seem to play concerted games, and his movements have a bolder sweep and
abandonment. He travels on a more lofty story of the tree-terraces,
progressing through the pines in a succession of leaping feats, performed
with the ease, deliberation, and precision of perfect gymnastic art. The
scenery which nature has assigned to this performance gives an impression
of freedom which makes the thought of confinement infamous.
On the plains life would appear to be easier, for there is an almost
constant succession of fruits and edible leaves in the jungles, and the
crops are more accessible. Thievish monkeys sometimes haunt the
halting-places of travellers. A friend of mine halted at a _parao_ or stage
where was a grove of mango-trees affording grateful shade to travellers,
and while resting, he watched a little comedy. Apart from the others, a
Hindu was preparing his evening meal. In one pot over the fire a stew of
pulse was boiling, while he kneaded dough and baked the invariable wheaten
flap-jacks. As each cake is taken from the iron griddle plate it is stuck
edgewise in the hot embers till all are ready, when they are piled
together. This was done, and the Hindu turned to set the ghi pot and
drinking vessels in order and to hail his companion to come to dinner.
While his back was turned, a big monkey dropped from the boughs overhead,
seized the pile of cakes, and was off in a flash. Now the baking of bread
is a semi-ritualistic business, involving a good deal of labour, and it was
a very angry Hindu who received in his face one of the hot flap-jacks
dropped by the monkey clutching his prize with awkward fingers above. Then
the other man came and swore too, but the monkey swore the worst, irritated
by the heat of his plunder, which, however, he was determined not to let
go. The watchman of the stage assured my friend that this trick was a
frequent occurrence, for that particular monkey was "as cunning as a
_baniya_ (or tradesman) and as daring as a _thug_ (highway robber)--a very
demon of a monkey." Yet it had never occurred to him or to the robbed
travellers to take measures against it.
It may be that "advanced India" will in time give up the protection of the
monkey, but there are hitherto no signs of a change in popular feeling. In
April 1886, in the highly civilised and cosmopolitan city of Bombay, a
Hindu of good position was in danger of losing every social privilege of
his caste and of undergoing an ostracism more complete than any imagined by
Athenian citizen or Irish Land-leaguer, because he was said to have allowed
a European officer of police to shoot a troublesome monkey from the window
of his house. The officer had been invited by the people to rid them of the
creature, and its death was frankly acknowledged as a relief, but the
letter of the law forbade the murder. Officers of government are careful
not to wound the feelings of the people with reference both to monkeys and
peacocks, a delicacy which does not always restrain the hungry low-caste
man.
A collector and magistrate of a district in Hindustan proper had been out
shooting, and was returning to camp. On a tree on the other side of the
Ganges Canal, along which he was walking, sat a monkey. The animal seemed
almost out of range, and my friend idly pointed his gun and fired in its
direction with intent to startle it, but, to his dismay, the monkey fell
and lay dead. Fortunately no one was near, and at night this worshipful
magistrate, whose word was law for leagues round, stole out alone with a
lantern, taking a long round to the nearest bridge, to look for his victim.
It was not easily found, and never, even on the judicial bench, did he so
keenly realise the feelings of a murderer trying to hide the evidences of
his guilt. He succeeded in disposing of the body, and returned to camp
determined never to point a gun at a monkey again. Another friend of mine
had for neighbour a Hindu devotee of great repute and sanctity, whose hut,
besides being a resort of gamblers and bad characters, had a large retinue
of monkeys that were fed by visitors. The animals wrought great havoc in my
friend's garden, whereupon in his irritation he threatened to shoot them.
The Sâdhu took the will for the deed, and fulminated a curse against the
Englishman as terrible as that which the Archbishop of Rheims inflicted on
the jackdaw. He was filled with a holy joy when my friend fell ill, and
desponded when he recovered.
St. Francis de Sales wrote:--"I am despised and I grow angry;--so does the
peacock or the monkey." This is more like an Oriental than a Western word.
The irritable monkey is ready to be angry at anything. The Oriental,
however, considers the monkey--apart from his sacred affinity with Hanumān,
a type, not so much of petulance, as of untrustworthiness. "What is a
monkey's friendship worth?" he asks, and he says in scorn of a trivial and
foolish person--"a tailless monkey." "A cocoa-nut in a monkey's hand,"
stands for ill-bestowed gifts or gear and for ineptitude, for the creature
cannot get at the kernel, having neither strength nor wit to break the
shell. "A flower in a monkey's hand" is a common Malay expression to a
similar purpose. "One monkey does not tell another monkey that his buttocks
are red" is a homely word with obvious uses. There are ten things, says a
proverb, which may not be depended upon--"A courtesan, a monkey, fire,
water, a procuress, an army, a distiller, a tailor, a parrot, and a
goldsmith." The selection is significant, and--in India--just. In the
stables of the wealthy a monkey is often kept to attract to itself stray
influences of the evil eye, that ever-present bogy of the East. So there is
a saying,--"What goes wrong in the stable falls on the monkey's head." This
can be used in daily life by those frequent persons who habitually fancy
themselves wrongly accused. It is unlucky to utter the word monkey in the
morning, but lucky to see one before breakfast. "Speak of a monkey or an
owl in the morning and you'll get no breakfast."
In the Rāmāyana of Tūlsi Dass, (a relatively modern version of the great
epic poem in which the Hindus delight) a method of catching monkeys by
means of a bait of grain in a narrow-mouthed jar is spoken of as an example
of the metaphysical principle of illusion which makes so great a figure in
Hindu cobweb philosophy. The monkey is supposed to fill his fist so full
that he is unable to withdraw it, and has not the wit to let go his spoil
and release himself. This is quite reasonable enough for a metaphysical
illustration. A more practical form of illusion is to put some grain in a
clear glass bottle and hand it to a monkey. It tries to seize the grain,
then, concluding the distance was not properly judged, it takes a careful
sight along the bottle, and, with a diverting air of great astuteness,
passes a slow hand down and gives a sudden clutch. After one or two
attempts it loses temper and interest. Similarly, the illusion of a mirror
puzzles a young dog when he is first introduced to it, and, according to
his character and temper, interests and excites him, but after a short time
he gives it up and waits for more facts, like the philosopher he is. A
foolish cock-sparrow, on the other hand, will nearly kill himself in
fighting his reflection.
Does the survival of respect for monkeys, amounting at times to a definite
acknowledgment of kinship, indicate the early arrival of Hindu philosophers
at the latest conclusion of European Evolutionists? Modern Hindu students
of the Vedas and other ancient records draw from those vague depths
material to support such theories as the Hindu discovery of America and the
founding of the ruined cities of its central region; with the use of
balloons, railways, and contrivances like the electric telegraph. A slender
verbal hint suffices to give a complacent sense of having once at least
marched in the foremost files of time. But they would be on more plausible,
if not more solid ground in essaying to show that the Hindu respect for
life, the admission of the essential unity of the life-spark, whether in
man or moss, and the special regard for the ancestral monkey, its
deification, and the traditions of its aptitude for speech, labour, and
war, were proofs that the philosophy of the East has for ages sat in
tranquil occupation of a peak of discovery to which the vanguard of Western
science has but now attained.
CHAPTER IV
OF ASSES
"'Twas when the rain fell steady and the ark was pitched and ready,
And Noah got his orders for to take the bastes below:
He haled them all together by the hide and horn and feather,
And all except the donkey were agreeable to go.
"Then Noah spoke him fairly, then rated him sevarely,
And then he cursed him squarely to the glory of the Lord,
'Divil take the ass that bred you and the triple ass that fed you,
Divil go with you, you spalpeen;'--and the donkey went aboard.
"But the wind was always failin' and 'twas most onaisy sailin',
And the ladies in the cabins couldn't stand the stable air,
And the bastes betwixt the hatches, they tuk and died in batches,
And Noah said 'There's one of us that hasn't paid his fare.'
"For he heard a flusteration with the bastes of all creation,
The trumpeting of elephants and the bellowing of whales.
And he saw forninst the windy, when he went to stop the shindy,
The Devil with a pitchfork, bedevilling their tails.
"The Devil cursed outrageous, but Noah said umbrageous,--
'To what am I indebted for this tenant-right invasion?'
And the Devil gave for answer,--'Evict me if you can, sir,
For I came in with the donkey at your honour's invitation.'"
R. K.
[Illustration]
Passing from the free to the fettered, we come to a beast which in India
serves at once as an expression of wild liberty, more complete than that of
the monkey, and of utter and abject slavery. There is no freedom more
unrestrained than that of the wild ass and no bondage more bitter than that
of his brother in servitude. For a wholly unmerited obloquy, relic of a
dark aboriginal superstition, is added to the burden of toil and hard
living. Yet there was once a time when in the nearer East, or ever the
horse was known, he was held in high honour, carved in Assyrian sculptures,
and reckoned a suitable steed for prophets and kings. Even now in Cairo,
Damascus, and Bagdad, although the Bedawi Arab pretends to despise him, he
is regularly ridden by respectable people.
The _Arabian Nights_ story of a conversation overheard between the ox and
the ass shows the estimation in which he was held; and it is written that
Muhammad himself had two asses, one of which was called Yafūr, nor did that
great man disdain to ride double. But here in India, by formal
prescription, only the gypsy, the potter, the washerman, and such like
folk, out-caste or of low caste, will mount or own the ass. This
prescription, and the ridiculous Hindu association of the donkey with the
goddess of smallpox, account for the universal dislike and disdain in which
this most useful, sagacious, and estimable animal is held. He is never fed
by his owners, and his chronic hunger is mocked by a popular saying that to
feed a donkey is neither sin nor sacrifice:--"_na pâp na pŭn_." A dozen
popular Indian versions of "casting pearls before swine" derisively offer
cakes, sweetmeats, bread, sugar, saffron, ghi, and curry-combs to the ass,
and it has entered into no one's mind to conceive the simple truth that he
has deserved them all. Also, with bitter irony, he is said to be always in
good case whatever the season--because in the hot, dry weather, when he
looks about on the burnt-up plain, he brays with glee--saying:--"This is
vastly well! I must be fat since I have eaten up all the grass." While in
the rains he brays and says:--"I shall never get through all this fodder."
As a joke this popular gibe is beneath contempt, while as an imputation on
the donkey's sense it is wholly unwarranted. A purely idiotic and
unaccountable fancy is that if one walks over the place where a donkey has
rolled he will have pains in his feet or be smitten with paralysis. The
Arab superstition recorded by Al Masudi, that ghouls have asses' feet, may
have some share in the notion, for in the East ghouls are still alive and
have a natural history of their own.
* * * * *
It may not be very painful, but the slitting of the poor creature's
nostrils, almost universal in India, and meant to soften the clangour of
his voice, has always seemed to me a monstrous affectation of delicacy of
ear on the part of people who delight in the tom-tom and the pipe, while
it gives a tattered and woe-begone air to a countenance already
sufficiently marked with dejection. Nor is it of the least use, for that
stormy music, "loud and clear," rings with unabated force in spite of the
hideous mutilation. Mr. Villiers Stuart of Dromana mentions an ancient
Egyptian wall-picture of a driver trying to stop his donkey when in full
bray. The Speaker of the House of Commons in wig and robe may at times
succeed in staunching the human,--but nothing short of decapitation would
avail to silence the equine ass until that final sound, most like the spasm
of a church organ when the wind fails, is reached. And when they slit the
nostrils, they proceed in mere wantonness of brutality to split the ears
also. For this there can be no reason. It is impossible to write in
measured phrase of these cruel tricks, but those who dream of Oriental
loving-kindness should be told that they have been practised for centuries,
and are still unnoticed and unrebuked.
* * * * *
His very name, _Gădha_--the roarer,--is a reproach. Some Muhammadans have
an idea that the donkey sees the devil when he brays, possibly because of
the belief that it was he who introduced the Father of Evil into the Ark.
When Hăzrăt Nuh (the worshipful Noah) was marshalling the animals into the
Ark, the donkey, as is his modest wont, held back. "Nay then, go along!"
said Noah; but the ass did not move. Then the Patriarch lost his temper,
for the time was short and the clouds were gathering, and he cried, "Go on
and may the Devil go with thee!" When the door was shut Noah met the Evil
One inside and asked how he came there. "Surely then," replied that Wicked
One, "I came by your honour's invitation." If there is a moral in this
absurdity, it is that when holy men lose their tempers they open the door
to sin; but in some topsy-turvy way, possible only to Oriental thought, the
obloquy of the anecdote falls on the innocent ass. If injurious reflections
and vile phrases were all he had to bear, there would not be much cause for
complaint, but it is hard to write with patience of the constant and cruel
beating the poor creature receives.
The race, through centuries of ill-usage, is stunted and weak; and the
brutal rule seems to be that to the smallest ass shall go the biggest
stick. It is just possible by taking the cudgel from the ass-driver's hand
and applying it lustily to his back to convey to his mind some glimmering
of an idea that the blows he finds hard to bear may perhaps be painful to
the ass. No mere words avail to suggest this new and strange notion. The
evangel of kindness to God's creatures can scarcely, however, be spread by
missionaries with thick sticks; and for many a year to come the portion of
the ass must be starvation and ill-usage. A folk-tale which accounts for
the popular saying "As brave as the potter's wife" bears unintentional
testimony to the way in which the ass is beaten. One cold dark night a
potter and his wife were roused from sleep by sounds in the yard outside
and the fall of pipkins. "Get up, man!" said the wife, "and drive the
donkey away." But being warm, snug, and sleepy, he replied, "Bother the
donkey!" and pulled the blanket over his shoulders. Thereupon, uttering
some truisms of world-wide acceptation on the selfishness of husbands, the
good wife arose, and seizing the potter's staff sallied out to bestow on
the intruder's back all the resentment caused by her husband's laziness.
She laid on with a will and the beast was still. So she went to bed again,
muttering more truths. But in the morning when they opened the door they
found no donkey, but a tiger, which the good woman had unwittingly beaten
to death in the dark. The potter and his donkey have originated one of the
many ironical gibes of the country. A traveller met two horsemen richly
attired, and, a little farther on, a potter jogging along on his ass. He
asked the latter who the cavaliers might be. "We three gentlemen are going
to Delhi," said the potter, and this speech is murmured when a man brags
of the fine company he keeps.
[Illustration: THE POTTER AND HIS DONKEY]
The black mark set against the ass by Hindu superstition from his
association with Sitala, the goddess of smallpox, has already been noticed.
This awful divinity is one of the ten manifestations of Durga or Kali the
Destroyer, and is suspected of having entered the Hindu pantheon from the
lower levels of aboriginal superstition. She is dreaded by all, but her
worship, which is never performed during an epidemic of smallpox, seems to
be confined to women and children, who flock to her shrines in thousands
and sometimes throw a few grains of pulse to the ass.[1] But the poor
creature draws no real profit from his appointment to be her
_vâhan_--vehicle or steed. The bull, on the other hand, as the _vâhan_ of
Mahadeo or Shiva, often enjoys a full-fed freedom, and those led about by
Hindu beggars are known as _nandi_, "the happy one," the name given to the
carven stone bull in front of Hindu temples and to the small brass bull
which supports the canopy over a domestic _shiv_.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Ibbetson writes, in his _Outlines of Punjab Ethnography_,
"These deities (of disease) are never worshipped by men, but only by women
and children, enormous numbers of whom attend the shrines of renown on
Sitala's seventh. Every village has its local shrine too, at which the
offerings are all impure. Sitala rides on a donkey, and grain is given to
the donkey and to his master the potter, after being waved over the head of
the child. Fowls, pigs, goats are offered, black dogs are fed, and white
cocks are waved and let loose. An adult who has recovered from smallpox
should let a pig loose to Sitala or he will be again attacked. During an
attack no offerings are made, and if the epidemic has once seized on a
village all worship is discontinued till the disease has disappeared; but
so long as she keeps her hands off nothing is too good for the goddess, for
she is the one great dread of Indian mothers."]
In the days of rough-and-ready Qâzi justice, criminals were frequently
sentenced to be shaven and blackened and to be paraded, with their clothes
rent, through the city, mounted on asses, with their faces tailwards, and
a garland of old shoes round their necks. An old Sikh of my acquaintance
has seen this punishment inflicted, with the addition, in the case of
thieves, of the loss of hands, ears, or noses. In Mussulman countries
farther west the penalty is still applied. Even now, in remote Indian
villages, a noxious person is occasionally treated to a donkey ride of this
kind, with a noisy accompaniment of beaten pans. In the similar "skimmity
ride" of the south of England, described in Mr. Thomas Hardy's _Mayor of
Casterbridge_, effigies of the offending persons are paraded on the backs
of asses. As an example of utter shamelessness they tell of offenders who,
after the performance, calmly demand the donkey as their perquisite. In
folk-tales unfaithful wives have their noses cut off and are paraded on
donkey-back. Nose-cutting, by the way, as in the days of the Hitopadesa, is
the punishment still awarded by popular sentiment in India to conjugal
infidelity, and not a week passes without a case of this horror, in our
police courts; but it is only the woman's nose which suffers, and the
greater part of these barbarities never comes to light.
There are evidences of a quaint ritual of obloquy in which the honest
donkey was made to take part. When it was decided that a site was infamous
for some sacro-sanct Hindu reason, it was formally ploughed up and asses
were yoked to the plough. But a re-consecration was possible, and then the
lordly elephant dragged the plough. "May your homestead be ploughed by
asses" is still a common Hindu curse.
The ass has been made to serve in the conflicts of race and creed which
still divide India. Before the establishment of British rule the Hindus on
the North-West frontier, where Muhammadan authority was paramount, were
not allowed to wear full-size turbans, and might ride asses only. In the
independent state of Cutch Bhūj, on the other hand, where the rulers are
Hindus, the Muhammadan Borahs were forbidden to ride on horseback, a
disability which has only just been removed (1890). The Borahs, on whom
this indignity has for so long been laid, are not, as might be imagined,
low-caste folk of no consideration, but include among them some of the most
intelligent, public-spirited, and wealthy men in the Bombay Presidency. The
Muhammadan is perhaps, in matters of this kind, more tyrannical and
intolerant than the Hindu. At this moment the Jews in some parts of Morocco
may only ride on asses, with their faces tailwards, and they may not wear
shoes.
That caste pride is as strong among people of low estate as in the upper
ranks is a commonplace everywhere. Indian grooms of the leather-dresser
tribes are supposed to be of low degree; but when a lady of my acquaintance
proposed to get a donkey for her little son she learned a lesson in this
subject from one of her horse-keepers: "No, madam, my son shall never wait
on an ass. You must get a potter's brat for him, and he must not come near
our stable."
India follows, or perhaps the East has led, other countries in the use of
the donkey's name as a term of reproach. "Ass" is a common word in all
contemptuous mouths, and "tailless ass" is an occasional enhancement of
scorn. When a fool is praised by a fool they say, "Ass scratches ass," and
a similar saying expresses the arts of log-rolling intrigues with homely
force. For the sake of ricochet shots at fools the poor beast is insulted
by comparisons which would never occur to his humble mind, as "Wash an ass
as much as you like, you will never make a calf of him," or "Bray him in a
mortar, but he will never be a horse." Muhammadans say, "If even the ass of
Jesus went to Mecca he would still come back an ass." The obstinacy born of
ill-usage, which is his only fault, points many a gibe. As an illustration
of Afghān character a folk-tale tells that at a Punjab river ferry a crowd
of passengers and animals were assembled. When the boat came, all went
aboard without hesitation, excepting an ass, which refused to move. His
driver pushed and the boatmen hauled without effect, until at last an
Afghān among the waiting passengers drew his _churra_, the long and heavy
Khyber knife, and smote the poor beast's head off at a blow, crying,
"Obstinacy like this may be permitted to an Afghān, but to a donkey,
never."
Among the Biloch, neighbours of the Afghān, this same obstinacy is
honoured. Mr. Ibbetson writes in his _Punjab Ethnography_, "When a male
child is born, asses' dung in water, symbolical of pertinacity, is dropped
into his mouth from the point of a sword before he is given the breast."
Antipathies of race and region, calmly ignored by those who write of "the
people of India" as one and indivisible, find expression in sayings wherein
the donkey takes part. A Hindustani will say of a Punjabi, "A country
donkey with a Punjab bray"; and the Punjabi retaliates with, "A country
donkey with an Eastern limp"; while of the Bengali Baboo, who affects
English speech and manners, they say, "A hill jackass with an English
bray."
Yet while the animal is despised the nutritive value of its milk is
recognised. The potter and his family grow strong at the expense of the ass
foal, and the high-caste Hindu pretends to be horrified by such an
abomination. Vemana, a sage whose sayings take a high rank in Telugu
literature, says, "A single spoonful of milk from a good cow is enough--of
what use is a pailful of asses' milk?" Most Hindus would say that the use
of this fluid is impossible under any circumstances. None the less is it
accounted a valuable medicine by Hindu doctors, who on occasion put caste
laws aside and compound mixtures, compared with which the most loathsome
messes set forth in "Saxon leechdoms" are what our English druggists would
call elegant prescriptions. Asses' milk is prescribed for a tendency to
phthisis and other diseases, but usually at too late a stage to be of any
use.
In some regions the donkey enjoys a moment's honour as the steed of Sitala;
for a bridegroom about to start in the marriage procession will mount an
ass for an instant, as a propitiation to the dread goddess. In customary
talk, however, there are but few sayings which treat him with any touch of
consideration. The "donkey's beauty" of Italian and French proverb has an
equivalent in "Even a she-ass is pretty when she is young." The creature's
sureness of foot is admitted in "A donkey will tumble down hill when you
can split a fowl's ear." The poor wretch is turned loose when his work is
done to that forlorn freedom of neglect which is the only privilege of the
outcast. So they say in varying forms of phrase, "The donkey may be sore
with beating, despised of all men and accursed as the _vâhan_ of Sitala,
but at least he is never plagued with tether or heel-rope." Some
alleviation is granted even to the most abject misery.
There is a more complete harmony with the topsy-turvy scheme of Oriental
appreciations than can be imagined by untravelled folk in the fact that
while the ass is the most despised of creatures he is one of the most
useful. There are regions where he is yoked to the plough, but his
principal occupation is carrying clothes for the washerman, and earth,
burnt and unburnt lime, and stone for the potter, the builder, and the
railway contractor. Your great works in the West are built by strong-armed
men, but in India railway bank, water-works dam, and Queen's highway are
raised by the slender cooly woman and the little donkey. His step is first
in the peaceful halls which mark the new civilisation, but his loads are
too heavy for his weak limbs, his rude harness seems to be expressly
contrived to gall and wound him, his life is one long martyrdom to the
stick, and he is shamefully abandoned to starve and die when his strength
fails. According to a country tale, similar to one told by Longfellow in
his _Tales of a Wayside Inn_, there was once an Indian ruler who took
compassion on a donkey. The Emperor Jehanghir caused a bell to be slung
over his couch which might be rung by any petitioner with a wrong to
redress. One day it was found that a castaway ass, rubbing his sore hide
against the bell-rope, had rung a peal. The creature was haled before the
throne, and search was made for its master, a washerman, who confessed that
he had abandoned it to starve and die. The Emperor gave him a lecture on
his cruelty, and ordered him to take back his faithful servant to be fed
and cherished and to appear again before him after a season. That one
donkey was groomed and fed as never ass before or since and brought sleek
and fat into the august presence; but the example has borne no fruit, and
the grim "burial of an ass" described by the prophet Jeremiah succeeds a
lingering death by starvation.
CHAPTER V
OF GOATS AND SHEEP
"They killed a child to please the Gods
In earth's young penitence,
And I have bled in that babe's stead
Because of innocence."
"I bear the sins of sinful men
That have no sin of my own;
They drive me forth to Heaven's wrath
Unpastured and alone."
"I am the meat of sacrifice,
The ransom of man's guilt,
For they give my life to the altar knife,
Wherever shrine is built."
R. K.
[Illustration: A HINDU SACRIFICIAL KNIFE]
"There is no house possessing a goat but a blessing abideth thereon; and
there is no house possessing three goats but the angels pass the night
there praying," said Muhammad. And truly, if the animals of India had
creeds like the people, goats would be of Islám; for though a vast
proportion of the population, including Hindus, possess a goat or two and
eat their flesh, it is mostly Moslems who keep them in flocks and trade in
them. There is something too in appearances. The Brahminy bull looks every
inch a Hindu; and the goat, to accustomed eyes, has no less decided a
Muhammadan air.
Immense numbers of he-goats are sacrificed by Hindus, principally to the
goddess Kali, one of the manifestations of Durga; and the practice is to
decapitate them at a blow with a heavy bill-hook-shaped knife. It is
supposed, indeed, that only animals slaughtered in this fashion are fit for
Hindu food. For many years a goat has been sacrificed daily at a temple
within the precincts of the old palace at Ambér, the former capital of the
Jeypore state in Rajputana; and here, as in some other places, the
tradition is that the goat is a substitute for a human sacrifice once
regularly offered. In some parts of India, Hindus say, "The goat gets its
own tail," a saying based on a local sacrificial usage. Each limb of the
sacrifice belongs to a deity. The tail is assigned to Vishnu, who only can
save. This part is therefore cut off and put into its mouth, so that at
least the creature gets salvation, and presumably has less cause of
objection to death. The Muhammadan _halāl_ custom involves a sort of verbal
apology to the creature slain, with a prayer; and, like the Hindu custom,
seems to acknowledge that it also has a soul. Some Muhammadans kill a goat
by way of sacrifice soon after the birth of a man child, and when a child
is sick. The throat is cut with the usual invocation, pronounced by a
Moollah.
[Illustration: A DOMESTIC SACRIFICE (MUHAMMADAN)]
We say in derision of hasty vows, "When the devil was sick," etc.: in India
they mutter, "If I get safe across I'll offer a goat." The story goes that
a Meo, one of the crocodile-eating river-side tribesmen, made this promise
when starting to cross the Ganges in flood; but when half-way over he found
it less dangerous than he had feared, so instead of a goat he vowed to
sacrifice a hen. When he had fairly won over, even the fowl seemed too much
to give, so he sought for an insect among his clothing. This was easily
found, and as he crushed it he said, "A life for a life, and that's
enough."
In the hill districts of the Punjab the ancient idea still prevails that
the sacrifice is not efficacious unless the animal first shivers. Thus,
during the marriage progress of a hill-chief a goat is sacrificed at
bridges and dangerous passes, and the long train waits contentedly until
the creature shivers. The Brahmans, if so disposed, hasten the tremor by
dashing a handful of cold water into the goat's ear, and thus produce a
quite satisfactory shiver. In Kulu, a hill province bordering on Tibet,
when two men have a difference which would lead elsewhere to a costly
law-suit, each leads a goat to a shrine at Nuggur, the chief town, and
waits to see which beast shivers first. The owner of that goat wins his
case, and the contending parties go home content with a divine judgment for
which no lawyer's fees have been paid. But in these cases they do not use
the cold douche.
So far as I know, belief in the shivering goat as a favourable omen is
confined to the hills, and it is particularly strong in Tibet. It was
consulted with disastrous effect to the Tibetans in the recent Sikkim war
just before they attacked our forces on the pass above Chumbi on the road
into Sikkim.
The goat and the kid are the staple of the flesh food of the Muhammadans
all over the East, and also of many Hindu castes, in Northern India
especially. It is a fact that while the vegetarian craze is said to be
spreading in the West, the use of goats and sheep as food is increasing in
India,--popularly supposed to be given up to vegetarianism, even among
Brahmanical castes. Throughout Hindustan proper and the Punjab, where
contact with Islám has softened the edges of Hinduism, flesh food has been
eaten by Hindus for centuries. By men, that is to say, for Hindu women very
rarely taste it. Many more things besides flesh meat are considered too
strong and good for mere women. Increasing prosperity is at the bottom of
such change as is taking place, and probably the silent force of example
counts for something. Hindus have said to me at times, "You English do not
suffer so much from fever as we do because you eat flesh meat," and "Your
eyesight is strong because you eat plenty of meat." This last might be
based on observation of flesh-eating birds, but I doubt it. There is,
however, a popular saying which forcibly expresses an estimate of the
virtue of meat: "The butcher's daughter bears a son when she is ten years
old." The home-keeping brother of the Prodigal Son complained that his
father never gave him even a kid to make merry with his friends. Phrases
like this which sound strange to town-bred Western ears, occur here in
everyday talk. Servants on the march are made happy with a present of kids,
and the festal days at the close of the long fast of the Muhammadan Ramazān
are red with the slaughter of countless goats. The Englishman in India
seldom wittingly eats goat or kid, but often in remote posting houses and
in camp his mutton cutlet was originally goat. The native prefers kid
before mutton, because the goat is a scrupulously clean feeder, while a
hungry sheep will eat anything.
It would seem difficult to be cruel to a goat, but the keepers of the
flocks of milch goats regularly driven morning and evening into Indian
cities contrive to inflict a good deal of pain. The nipples of the udder
are tied up in a torturing fashion, and there is an unnecessary use of the
staff. But the worst cruelty is the practice of flaying them alive in the
belief that skins thus prepared have a better quality. The Calcutta Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals prosecuted twenty-two criminals
for this offence in 1890, and is now inclined to hope the practice is dying
out so far as the capital of Bengal is concerned.
[Illustration: ON THE DUSTY HIGHWAY]
There are many sayings about goats, but the animal appears to be less
suggestive than might be expected. The wilfulness of the creature and his
habit of trespass are hinted in "Nothing to bother you, eh?--then go and
buy a goat!" A gibe at the greed of saintly people is expressed in verse:--
"My Lord, the goat a saint would be,
His pupil was a cotton tree,
And quickly nibbled up was he."
The bearded Moollah of the mosque also has the goat cast offensively in his
teeth. "You were moved by my discourse, I trust it will do you good," says
the Moollah. "Yes," replies the countryman, "I could have wept, for when
you wagged your beard in the pulpit you were just like our old billy-goat."
This is also a European story. For "great cry and little wool" rustics say,
"The goat bleated all night and produced only one kid,"--two being the
usual number.
In folk-tales holy places are discovered by the milch goats coming home
dry. It was found they had let down their milk on some sacred spot on which
a temple or shrine is afterwards raised. Many out-of-the-way Hindu shrines
are accounted for in this way. In other stories goats lead the way to caves
tenanted by mystic immortals of miraculous powers. A quaint belief is that
in dry desert places where wells formerly existed goats will group
themselves in a circle round the ancient well brink, though not a trace of
it is visible to the keenest human eye. Those who sketch animals may have
noticed that goats at rest have a way of grouping themselves as if posing
for their portraits. It is possible that this unconscious trick is at the
bottom of the well-brink belief. So far as I know there are no sayings
which notice the fine carriage of the head and the elegant horse-like gait
of this beautiful animal. The Indian goat as a rule is much taller and of
more slender build than the European animal.
From an administrative and economic point of view there are serious
objections to the goat, which is one of the plagues of the Forest
Department of the Government. It is the poor man's animal and is supposed
to cost nothing to keep. Every green shoot is nibbled off as soon as it
peeps above the ground, and young trees are promptly destroyed by
creatures which spend half their time on their hind legs and have an
effective reach up to the height of a man's head. Thus large tracts which
nature is ready to clothe with vegetation are kept barren, and new forests
carefully nursed by the provident state are devastated. Many more are kept
than the land can carry. The creatures really belong to the purely pastoral
scheme of life, and to the barren hillside, and are out of place in
agricultural areas, which are increasing yearly, and may be regarded as at
once a sign and a cause of unthrifty poverty and land-leanness.
[Illustration: MILCH GOATS]
The goat's trick of picking up stray trifles is sometimes inconvenient. A
Bengal saying runs, "What will not a goat eat or a fool say?" Two native
merchants in Bombay were concluding a bargain, and while making payment a
currency note for a thousand rupees fluttered to the ground and was
promptly eaten by a goat.
[Illustration: A GUILTY GOAT]
The receiver contended that the note had never reached him and the loss was
not his, while the other insisted that it was the fault of the receiver's
carelessness. A hasty Englishman might have insisted on a sudden autopsy of
the goat, but these were high-caste Hindus, who never dreamed of such a
thing, so they led the criminal between them to the Government Treasury,
where, after due inquiry, I believe the loss was made good.
After death the goat seems to be as much with us as in life, for his skin,
carefully withdrawn for this purpose, is borne as a water-vessel by the
_bhisti_ or water-carrier, and there are few more complete examples of
adaptation. The legs, sewn up, form perfect attachments for the strap by
which the bag is slung on the water-carrier's back, and the throat, which
is a convenient neck to the huge bottle, is ingeniously closed by a thong,
and is so supple that the _bhisti_ can direct a thin stream into the mouth
or hand of a thirsty passenger, or fill a decanter without spilling a drop,
or water a road with a far-reaching spray like that of a watering-cart, or
empty his burden into a bath-tub or a mortar-heap in a trice. _Bhisti_
really means a person from Paradise, a prince, and is one of the
half-ironical titles, like khalifa or caliph for a tailor, mehter or prince
for a scavenger, thakur or lord for a barber, and raj or royal one for the
bricklayer or mason, bestowed may be in time past as an acknowledgment of
the dignity of labour; but a little English child will often say, "Here
comes the _bhisti_ with his beast!" It is a rather pitiful beast, more like
a porpoise than a goat; yet at times when lying distended on the
well-block, with the leg-stumps in the air, and the man pausing a moment to
straighten his back before taking it up, I have thought a Levite at the
altars of Israel may have looked like this.
[Illustration: THE GOAT-SKIN WATERBAG (MASHK)]
The makers of goat-skin bags have a curious skill in flaying. One of them
once brought me a soft and glossy black kid skin cured with the hair on.
"What is this?" "Wait and see, sir," said he with a smile, and producing a
reed, he proceeded to inflate the skin in the manner described by Don
Miguel de Cervantes. A plump but not too shapely kid, with feet, ears, and
even eyes (in glass) complete, resulted, nor could I find a trace of a
seam. "Would not this be a fine thing for the 'wonder house'?" (native name
for museum). As a museum specimen it was scarcely eligible, but to this
moment I have no idea how it was done.
In Europe the goat is associated with the vine. The Bible has familiarised
us with the use of its skin as a wine-bag or "bottle," and it is still used
for this purpose in Spain and Cyprus. The Athenians during the festival of
Dionysus made a pretty game,--Ascoliasmus,--of leaping and dancing barefoot
on a wine-filled goat-skin smeared with oil. India is too temperate for
such high jinks, and puts no wine into skin bottles, for it makes none. A
_dren_ is a sort of raft made of goat or deer-skins inflated with air,
astride on which is uneasily fixed a cot bedstead. This serves as a
ferry-boat, and is used for descending hill-streams, the legs and arms of
the men in charge serving as oars and rudder. I have seen a gracious lady
of strong nerve, sitting serenely aloft on a contrivance of this kind,
attended by splashing bronze mermen, go gaily down a brawling river like a
new Amphitrite. When filled with water merely, the goat-skin or "mashk" is
a characteristic object. There is a story of an aide-de-camp in Simla who,
when walking up hill in full uniform behind a water-carrier on whose back a
newly filled "mashk" glistened plump in the sunshine, yielded to a
temptation that many have felt, and drawing his too-ready sword slashed the
thing open. It had not occurred to him that the "mashk" was full of dirty
water for road watering, nor that the whole contents would burst over him
in a cataract and utterly ruin his brave attire. One pays dearly sometimes
for the gratification of sudden impulses.
[Illustration: BHISTI, OR WATER-CARRIER]
In the Himálaya, flour and other food borne on a journey or brought home
from the shop are carried in a goat-skin bag which always forms a part of
the equipment of the hill peasant. When in accordance with an ancient
custom, men are impressed as porters or to work on the roads, as in the
French _corvée_--a blanket and a skin full of flour seem to be all they
take with them for an absence of three or four days on the hillside. These
are Hindus, but down in India proper no Hindu would put his food in a
leathern bag. There are many Hindus, indeed, who will not drink water from
the water-carrier's bag, and it were well if all shared this prejudice,
for, though undeniably handy and useful, it cannot be called a wholesome
contrivance. "Pipe-water," _i.e._ the tap-water now being introduced into
most large Indian towns, besides lowering the death-rate and increasing the
comfort of the inhabitants, has already lessened and will further reduce
the number of water-carriers.
It is only in India and Peru that the sheep is used as a beast of burden.
Borax, asafetida, and other commodities are brought in bags on the backs of
sheep driven in large flocks from Tibet into British territory. One of the
sensations of journeying in the hills of "the interior," as the farther
recesses of the mountains are called by Anglo-Indians, is to come suddenly
on such a drove as it winds, with the multitudinous click of little feet,
round the shoulder of some Himálayan spur. The coarse hair bags scrape the
cliff side from which the narrow path is out-built or hollowed, and allow
but scant room for your pony, startled by the unexpected sight and the
quick breathing hurry of the creatures as they crowd and scuffle past. Only
the picturesque shepherds return from these journeys, for the carriers of
the caravan, feeding as they go, gather flesh in spite of their burdens and
provide most excellent mutton.
[Illustration: A SPORTING MAN]
Sheep are numerous in India, but they are seldom kept by the cultivator or
farmer, for the combination of agricultural with pastoral life, common in
other countries, is almost unknown. In the towns of the plains rams are
kept as fighting animals, and the sport is a source of gratification to
many. A Muhammadan "buck" going out for a stroll with his fighting ram
makes a picture of point-device foppery not easily surpassed by the
sporting fancy of the West. The ram is neatly clipped, with a judicious
reservation of salient tufts touched with saffron and mauve dyes, and
besides a necklace of large blue beads, it bears a collar of hawk-bells.
Its master wears loosely round his neck or on his shoulders a large
handkerchief of the brightest colours procurable, his vest is of scarlet or
sky-blue satin embroidered with colour and gold, his slender legs are
encased in skin-tight drawers, a gold-embroidered cap is poised on one side
of his head, his long, black hair, parted in the middle and shining with
scented hair-oil, is sleeked behind his ears, where it has a drake's tail
curl which throws in relief his gold earrings, and in addition to two or
three necklaces, he usually wears a gold chain. Patent leather shoes and a
cane complete the costume. As he first affronts the sunshine, he looks
undeniably smart, but his return, I have observed, is not always so
triumphant. The ram naturally loses interest in a stroll which has not
another ram in perspective, and it is not easy to preserve an air of
distinction when angrily propelling homeward a heavy and reluctant sheep.
The great God Indra rides on a ram, but, for the bulk of the people, Indra
has been dead for many a day.
CHAPTER VI
OF COWS AND OXEN
"By those dumb mouths be ye forgiven
Ere ye are heard pleading with Heaven."
SIR E. ARNOLD.
[Illustration: A BOMBAY MILK WOMAN]
In Europe it is a half-forgotten legend that flocks and herds ranked first
among early forms of wealth, and it is only in dissertations on the origin
of money we are reminded that the root of pecuniary is _pecus_. But in
agricultural and pastoral India, dependent on cattle for milk and labour,
and on sheep and goats for flesh-meat, a hundred sayings, echoes of the now
forgotten prayers of the Vedic hymns, repeat the ancient estimates of
cattle. One of the first sensations of the tourist in India is the ubiquity
of the bull, the cow, and the ox. They are, in fact, foremost figures in
both the rustic and urban scenery of the country. Yet Lord Macaulay, when
painting this scenery for English readers, set down everything but its most
essential and familiar features. There is a splendid picture in his essay
on Warren Hastings, where the rich oriental detail of palm-trees, idols,
elephants, maidens with pitchers, and the rest, is like a profusion of
jewels set in florid beaten work of gilded metal, but the cow and ox were
not thought fine enough for the place in letters that they own in life.
The people have a passion,--no other word is strong enough,--for the
possession of cattle. Indian cities, full of folk, are also vast cow byres
or mistals, and hitherto sanitary reform has not ventured to interfere. The
cattle come and go at their own pleasure, and rub shoulders with humanity
with an ineffable air of security and fellowship. Nearly everybody is, or
thinks he is, a judge of a cow; there is no more popular subject of
discourse and none with so copious a terminology. Every possible and some
apparently impossible varieties of form and colour; of hair, horn, tail,
udder, dewlap, hump, eyes, and limbs has its separate name or phrase.
The peculiar sanctity of the animal may be a degradation of a poetical
Aryan idea, and the cow,--originally used as a symbol of the clouds
attendant on the Sun-God,--may have succeeded by a process of
materialisation to honours for which she was not intended, but she is now
firmly enthroned in the Hindu pantheon. There is, indeed, a strong tendency
among modern Hindus of the reforming order to re-affirm her sanctity as a
national shibboleth, and to denounce cow-killing in the strongest terms.
The beef-fed Briton who wishes to sympathise with the Hindu does not quite
like to be thrust aside as one of the impure (_Maleccha_),--learning with
some uneasiness that millions of most estimable people would sooner die
than touch the roast-beef of Old England. The damning mark set against the
English admits of but faint extenuation. They have done justice and loved
mercy, they have protected the lowly and weak, saved the widow from the
fire, fed the famine-stricken, taught the ignorant, and made that a nation
which was not a nation;--but they kill and eat the cow, and are therefore,
in a levitical sense, abominable. The Muhammadan, however, is accounted
worse, for he is of the people and among them; his creed is in opposition
to theirs, and there are rankling memories of a thousand insults to it
wrought on the sacred cow.
The Briton is an outland stranger from beyond the seven seas, he lives
apart and knows no better; the Moslem eats beef in pure spite! This is
manifestly unjust, but who can reason with a prejudice sanctioned by
centuries of usage and tradition? At this moment cow-killing is the
dangerous question of the country, always apt to provoke tumult and
bloodshed. I have heard the agitation for total abstinence from
intoxicating drink in the West mentioned as a parallel to the
anti-cow-killing movement in India, but, though touched with a similar
unreasonableness, teetotallers have hitherto refrained from breaking the
heads of moderate drinkers.
But while surmising that the cow may have come to a place of honour from
early and poetical association with myths of sun and cloud, it is possible
to regard her dignity from a merely human and reasonable standpoint. Menu
or other early law-givers may have proclaimed her sanctity as a means for
her protection and preservation among a people careless of the future and
prone to live on their capital. And with the same wise intention, the
setting free as consecrated gifts of cattle sires (to be noticed
hereafter), may have been ordained. At all events, these ordinances, in the
absence of any scientific knowledge of breeding, have availed to preserve
the cow. Nor is it unlikely that they rescued her from extinction, for it
is clear that beef was a popular food when some of the ancient Vedas were
written. It would not be hard to show that the same Aryan appreciation of
roast beef has served in the West to develop and improve cattle breeding,
but you will not easily persuade the modern Hindu of this fact. The
establishment of an aristocracy of Brahmans was another stroke of practical
wisdom; but the days when a class can be maintained aloft by formal
prescription merely, seem to be passing away all the world over.
It is not easy to select instances that shall make clear to foreign readers
the Hindu reverence for the cow and the place that her protection from
death holds as a sacramental ordinance. In Indian history the slaughter of
cows by impious and impure persons has often been the beginning of battle,
murder, and sudden death. The chronicles of every State are full of
retaliations for cow-murder, and in every local riot Hindu vengeance is
first wreaked on the Muhammadan beef-butcher. Respect for the cow and
loathing for the pig are the alpha and omega of the faith of thousands of
Hindus and Moslems of the lower orders. In purely Hindu States and in
Kashmir, where a Muhammadan population is ruled by a few Hindus, the
punishment officially awarded for killing a cow is death, and there are
cases on record where whole families have suffered death on suspicion of
the offence. The fat of the cow was said to be used in making a
newly-introduced cartridge, and so became an excuse for the Sepoy mutiny.
The cry most frequently raised by the Sikhs against the English in the days
before the annexation of the Punjab was that they defiled the country by
the slaughter of kine. And it was probably this cry that most availed to
raise the armies of the Punjab against us, for the Sikhs, like other
reformed Hindus, have jealously preserved the cow as an object of
reverence. One of the customary phrases used when pleading for mercy from a
creditor or a person in power is, "You are a Brahman, I am a cow." That is
to say, extend to me the same kind treatment that a cow receives.
In ordinary domestic life a Hindu who has accidentally killed a cow
voluntarily undergoes a painful penance. He is at once put out of caste and
must repair to the Ganges, no matter how long and toilsome the journey may
be. He must carry the cow's tail aloft at the end of a long staff, crying
aloud when approached so that all may avoid him as pollution incarnate. He
may not enter a village, but food is brought out to him when he halts on
his march. Arrived at the sacred river, he must pay fees, which he can
frequently but ill afford, to Brahmans for purifying rites, and he must eat
and drink the five sacrificial products of the cow, which are not milk and
butter merely, and do not include beef.
But it is no crime to allow a barren and useless cow to die, nor is it
wrong to starve a male calf to death. And cow-murder, in spite of all
ordinances, is one of the commonest offences of rustic life. The
leather-dressers are a low caste of Hindus whose business is to skin the
bodies of dead animals, which skins are their rightful perquisite. Leather
is yearly increasing in value, and this low caste seems likely to rise. One
speaks of low-caste people in deference to common usage, but Western
readers will, I trust, be slow to believe that whole races of mankind are
to be condemned to perpetual degradation because of their trade, or the
official position it occupied in the once admirable Indian scheme. Among
these so-called low castes there is often a complete organisation, a
priesthood and in some sort an aristocracy; and their caste disputes are
just as intricate and jealous of points of honour as those of the "twice
born" folk. Nor is there any need to disguise the fact that the gift of
freedom bestowed for the first time on India by the British Government
includes the gradual alleviation of the disabilities of low degree, under
which so many of the people have lain for ages. The change is coming about
without shock to the general system, and is one of the inevitable results
of education and life under free institutions. Some of the best artists and
craftsmen in India are of low caste, and there are those who resent their
rise in life, but it is coming as surely as to-morrow's dawn.
The leather-dressers, then, who take the skins of animals which divide the
hoof, consider themselves superior to those who skin horses and camels.
They are a most useful and laborious class; and, with education, will make
valuable citizens in time, but they have been known to hasten Nature's
course by poisoning the cattle of the villagers among whom they live. With
curious casuistry they persuaded themselves that it was not cow-murder to
insert a skilfully poisoned thorn under the skin of an animal to cause a
lingering death, nor to drop poisoned food within its reach, for they also
were Hindus and could not kill a cow outright. These are not exceptional
practices, for in one prison at one time fifteen hundred leather-dressers
have been confined for cattle poisoning. Hindu villagers have been known to
make "transactions" with their dangerous neighbours. When the cattle were
mysteriously dying (though the cause was no mystery), they summoned a
council and asked the leather-dressers for their opinion on the mortality.
The leather-dressers gravely replied that the village godlings, especially
those of their own peculiar caste, had been neglected, and that it would be
well to propitiate them. So a feast was made to the leather-dressers, and
their godlings were propitiated by offerings; both sides going through an
elaborate semi-religious farce with perfect gravity. Then the deaths would
cease for a time. There is a class of English medical officers known as
Chemical Examiners to Government, whose researches have largely contributed
to the detection and conviction of the cattle poisoners who for centuries
have taken a heavy toll on the beast life of the land. Many of the tricks
they have exposed must have been well known to the people, but even those
who had suffered most were reluctant to tell all they knew. A curious sign
of the changing time is the fact that Hindus of good caste, seeing the
profit that may be made from leather, are quietly creeping into a business
from which they are levitically barred. Money prevails against caste more
potently than missionary preaching.
The elaborate damnations ordained by Brahmanical authority for cow-killing
will appear monstrous to a future generation of Hindus. Europeans smile no
less at their assumption of knowledge of the future than at their grotesque
accumulation of horrors and their amazing arrogance, but they are still
real and awful to the uneducated Hindu, in spite of his ingrained distrust
of Brahmans. One of the characteristic contrasts of native life is the
contempt expressed in popular sayings for priestly authority, and the
actual respect it receives. Cows are to be given to Brahmans, but they
say: "When the cow goes dry or barren she is good enough for the Brahman,"
or "a one-eyed cow is a Brahman's gift." A black cow is thought to be the
most acceptable, but the Brahman of to-day cannot afford to be particular.
Of the idle wandering jogi, on the other hand, it is said "even the care of
a cow is a bother to him."
The bull receives high honours as the vâhan or steed of Shiva, and as such
is known as _Nandi_, the happy one. This name belongs also to the carven
stone bull which sits in state before the temples of Mahadeo or Siva, while
the small brazen bull forming part of an arrangement for the lustration of
a domestic Shiv or phallic emblem is known as _Nandigan_. Hindu devotees
who lead about bulls marked with Sivite emblems and supposed to be
consecrated to Mahadeo are called Anandis. In ordinary life the respect for
the bull finds quaint expression at times. A friend of mine was the owner
of a fine sire of a choice breed, which he sent to fairs and cattle shows,
where frequently some devout old woman would hang a garland of marigolds
round its neck and go through the familiar actions of worship.
The ancient Hindu practice of releasing a bull has been referred to. This
is still done on recovery from sickness, or as a propitiation, and is
called a _pŭn_ or dedicatory offering. The orthodox practice is to present
at the same time a heifer to the chief or Maha-Brahman. But it is said that
this part of the ceremony is frequently omitted, so that year by year the
Brahman's dues fall off. _Pŭn_ bulls have been useful as sires, but as the
population increases and grazing areas contract, they are a doubtful
blessing. In our Law Courts the question has been tried whether an animal
set free to stray at will is an article of property. At first sight there
would seem to be no great harm in yoking the beast to cart or plough. But
while Hindus acknowledge that such bulls may be a public nuisance and
rather approve than otherwise of an English District Officer who is
reported to have harnessed the dust-carts of a large municipality with
semi-sacred strays, it is quite another matter when a Muhammadan or a man
of low caste seizes a _pŭn_ bull. The decisions of the courts were
contradictory. In one it was affirmed that the beast belonged to nobody,
and might be appropriated to use, and in another that he was already
property and not to be interfered with. Nor is it only as a bone of
contention that cattle enter Law Courts, for a very binding form of oath is
sworn by pouring Ganges water on a cow's tail.
One of the most popular of the pictures sold at fairs is a composition
known as _Dharmrāj_, a name of _Yāma_, the Hindu Pluto, and also used
broadly for Justice. The Judge is enthroned and demon executioners bring
the dead to receive their doom. The river of death flows on one side of the
picture and those go safely across who hold a cow by the tail, while others
are torn by terrible fishes. Chitrgupt, the clerk or recording angel of
Yāma, considered to be the ancestor of the _Kayasth_ or clerkly caste, sits
in an office with account books exactly like those of a Hindu tradesman,
and according to the record of each soul, punishments or rewards are given.
For, as a popular native saying has it,--"God looks out of the window of
heaven and keeps account." _Duts_ or executioners torture offenders, while
the blest sail upwards in air-borne chariots.
[Illustration: KRISHNA ADORED BY THE GOPIS (FROM AN INDIAN PICTURE)]
The comparatively modern God Krishna is at the bottom of the popular liking
for cows. Here it may be again observed that the official mythology of the
books known to Europeans gives but a faint idea of the actual estimates of
the Hindu Gods in the minds of the people. Krishna is a divinity, but he is
much more. He is a man with a history, which is embroidered upon with all
that is most congenial to the Hindu imagination. The pranks of his youth,
when he teased and bewitched the Gopis or celestial milkwomen, stole their
butter, entangled them in delirious dances, hid their clothes when they
bathed in the river, and the like, are told in stories, acted in plays, and
sung everywhere. A small brass figure of the baby Krishna crawling on hands
and knees with an uplifted hand holding a pat of butter is known as the
"butter-thief," and is to be found in most Hindu houses. Every Hindu
mother,--and no mothers are more tender and affectionate,--sees a beautiful
and half divine Krishna in her baby boy and worships him with a devotion
unbroken by the variety of interests, amusements, and occupations which
distract the mind of her Western sister.
It must be confessed that to a fresh occidental mind there is nothing so
tiresome as a book of Hindu mythology. So it is unfortunate that books like
the _Prem Sāgur_ and other mythological stories are given as Hindi lesson
books to subalterns and others who wish to pass examinations in the
vernacular. An undiluted course of the classic mythology of Europe, shorn
of all the allusions, historical elucidations, and modern interpretations
which give it life would probably be almost as unattractive. The British
schoolboy has harboured some hard thoughts about Apollo and Jupiter, but
they are nothing to the distaste which many Anglo-Indians conceive for
Krishna and the rest, who appear as merely monstrous creations of a
disordered and sensuous fantasy. Seen on the nearer horizon of native life,
Krishna is one of the most human of the manifold forms set up by mankind
for adoration; being a typical young Hindu, full of the popular conception
of life, love, and beauty. It could not well be otherwise, for the God you
make must be in some sort the man you are or would like to be.
[Illustration: KRISHNA DRIVES THE CATTLE HOME (FROM AN INDIAN PICTURE)]
He leans against a tree, attended by cows, playing the pipe that charmed
the frolicsome wives of the cowherds, and drives the cattle home to the
gate of Bindraban in a thousand pictures exactly as to-day, save that he
now wears a turban instead of a crown. And, as in the pictures, he wields a
staff. Sanctity confers no immunity from the stick. One of the first
duties a country child learns is to drive and beat cattle. They are docile
enough and need no beating, but, from infancy, children are encouraged to
shoulder as heavy a stick as they can carry and to use it unmercifully. The
zeal of a child in rendering service is usually one of the most beautiful
things in life, but, though the father applauds, it is an ugly sight to see
a tiny boy belabouring a cow or ox with all his little strength, while
lisping gross terms of abuse learnt from his parents. That he may not be
able to inflict much pain is no extenuation of a practice which has
hardened the people in a stupid abuse of the stick.
But while it is lawful for a Hindu to take a stick to his cow, it is in the
highest degree improper for him to kick it. One of the curses invoked in
the Rāmāyana on those who approve of the exile of Rāma is,--"may he touch a
cow with his feet!"--and so incur the deepest Brahmanical damnation. To
stumble over a sleeping cow is still held unlucky, but not, as formerly, a
deadly sin. There is no prohibition against kicking an ox.
The beauty of the cow counts almost as much as her usefulness in popular
estimation, and the best breeds are really handsome. It is true that a
British amateur, accustomed to the level back of the English beast, at
first looks unfavourably on the hump and the falling hind-quarter. The head
seems too large and the body too short. But he acknowledges at once the
clean, thoroughbred legs, the fine expression of the eye, the air of
breeding in the broad convex brow and slender muzzle, the character given
by the deep thin dewlap, the smooth mole-like skin, and in the large breeds
an undefinable majesty of mien. In addition to their high caste and shapely
look, the hind legs are much straighter and less "cow-hocked" than those of
the English animal, and are not swung so far out in trotting. On occasion
the animal can jump a fence with a carriage of the limbs like that of the
horse. So in a very short time the Briton drops his prejudices and is even
reconciled to the hump, which, like that of the camel and the fat tail of
the _dūmba_ sheep, has some mysterious relation to the varying conditions
of a precarious food supply. They say vaguely it is a reserve of
sustenance, but it would take a physiologist to explain how it acts. Some
insist that the sloping quarter is the result of ages of scanty or
irregular feeding, but it is now, at all events, a fixed anatomical
peculiarity. Indian cattle breed freely with European stock, but it is not
yet settled whether improvement in milking power, which is all it seems
worth while to cross for, is really promoted by a strain of European blood.
Experiments of this kind have been tried in the hills, where the tiny
mountain cattle are absurdly poor milkers. The small Styrian or some of the
Swiss or Scandinavian breeds would probably be best suited for this
purpose. Some fine English beasts have been imported into the burning
plains, where falling into the hands of natives of position, they have been
promptly killed by over-feeding, heat, and want of exercise. Moreover the
English beast, bred for beef, is only shapely from a butcher's point of
view. The British butcher and farmer are more pedantic than Greek
grammarians, but happily their lore and standards of beauty are
inapplicable to India.
It is with the cattle as with the people of India, the more you learn about
them the more you find to interest you. But in regard to the cow and the ox
one's admiration is unstinted, nor need it be qualified by hesitation and
reserve. To the stranger the great variety of breeds and their adaptation
to a wide range of needs and conditions are not at first apparent. He sees
an ox and another ox as he sees a native and another native, without
noticing that they belong to distinct families. Orientals have a passion
for classifying things, and see scores of differences in rice, cotton,
wheat, cattle, and horses, which are barely perceptible even to trained
English eyes. But among cattle, though there is a bewildering variety of
local breeds, some broad differences may be easily learned. The backward
slope of the horns of the large and small breeds of Mysore cattle,--perhaps
the most popular type in use,--the royal bearing of the splendid white or
fawn oxen of Guzerat, and the transport and artillery cattle bred in the
Government farms at once strike the eye. These are the aristocrats of the
race, but they have appetites proportioned to their size and are too costly
for the ordinary cultivator. They trot in bullock coaches or draw the
springless and uncomfortable but delightfully picturesque native _răth_ or
canopied ox-cart, the wagons of the Government commissariat and of the
various Government baggage services. On the wide alluvial plains, where the
people are thickly planted, a small, slender, and colourless cow seems to
be the usual poor man's animal. The well-to-do keep breeds with foreign
names and of stouter build. On the great basin of volcanic trap or basalt,
which includes much of Western India, the cattle are more square in shape,
large in bone, and varied in colour.
[Illustration: PUNJAB BAILI (SPRINGLESS OX-CART)]
The richer pastures and cold winters of Kashmir and the hill country near
develop a sturdy, square-headed, short-legged race with a coarse coat like
that of the English cow. In the Himálaya, where the grass is deficient in
nourishing power, there are breeds of tiny, neatly formed animals with
coats that look like black or brown cotton velvet. These pasture on the
mountain-side, climbing almost as cleverly as goats, and their grazing
paths, trodden for centuries, have covered leagues of steep slope with a
scale-work pattern of wonderful regularity when seen from far. Cattle are
sent to the uplands to graze in the hot weather and some good sorts are
systematically bred in the inter-India hills, but the beast at its best is
a true Hindu of the hot plains. The "green country" in the Punjab, the
Kistna river in the south, and those gardens of India, Oudh and Guzerat,
produce the finest breeds.
[Illustration: COMPARATIVE SIZES OF THE LARGEST AND SMALLEST BREEDS OF
INDIAN OXEN]
[Illustration: THE BOMBAY REKLA]
I have sketched a diagram which shows roughly the range of size. Still
larger beasts than the largest shown occur at times. The smallest
represents a miniature race, not much bigger than Newfoundland dogs, but
exquisitely finished in every detail of ox form and full of life and
spirit. When harnessed to vehicles of a suitable size these tiny creatures
trot at a great pace. All Indian oxen can be trained to trot. The sloping
quarter and straight hock may possibly count for something in their more
horse-like gait. Between these two extremes are breeds of every possible
size, adapted for many uses. An old Anglo-Indian can scarcely be trusted to
recall the freshness of first impressions; but that one of the first things
to strike a stranger is the hurrying ox was proved by a distinguished
English tourist, who told me of the interest and amusement he found in the
traffic of Bombay streets, especially in the _rekla_, a small hack carriage
here sketched. The neatness of this vehicle, its sensible canopy to protect
the backs of the cattle from the sun, its low fares, its speed, and the
continual cry of the driver, impressed my friend so much that he was
inclined to describe it as the Hindu hansom. So it is,--in usage; but it is
really of Portuguese descent, for the Hindu, left to himself, never dreamed
of springs. Nor is it the only good thing that Western India owes to the
Portuguese.
The points of cows and oxen, their varieties of horn, breed, shape, and
character are expressed in a multitude of sayings whose darkness and
esoteric quality seem at times to justify the son of Sirach in asking--how
can they be wise whose talk is of oxen? Many of the canons in use are the
unimpeachable result of ages of observation and experience, but others seem
to be merely fantastic nonsense referring to trivial accidents of hair,
horn, or colour. A jumbling of sternest use and wildest fancy is one of the
most bewildering of Oriental traits. The cultivator, who, by the
necessities of his life, is sordidly practical, will at one and the same
moment deliver himself of a grim sweat-and-blood axiom, born of penury and
edged with despair, and some blind blundering ineptitude which, though
sanctioned by immemorial usage, could be disproved by five minutes'
observation of fact. And the language in which these sayings are shaped is
strangely and sometimes almost unintelligibly elliptical and idiomatic.
They have been turned over in so many mouths that only the bare bones of
meaning are left, and are so perplexed by broad, local dialects that an
accustomed ear is needed for their comprehension.
There is no shorter cut to the goodwill of the cultivator than an
instructed interest in cattle. In the West, too, strangers will fraternise
while handling an animal with judicious appreciation of its points. It
should be remembered, however, that rustic cattle are not used to Europeans
and dislike their odour,--or lack of odour. A saying runs, "Keep seven
cubits distance from an elephant, five from a horned beast, twenty from a
woman, and thirty from a drunken man,"--and, in so far as concerns the
beast, the advice is doubly applicable to European amateurs. To be fair,
the Indian animal is naturally inoffensive, and always gives warning of
irritation by a peculiar hissing snort. I once afforded some amusement to a
group of friends by disregarding this sound. We were on a walking trip at
the foot of the Western Ghauts, and inquired the way up the Bhau Mullen
hill from a boy in charge of a string of empty pack oxen. While talking to
him I noticed he was in difficulties with his leading beast, a little black
bull with villainously sharp horns, who hissed like a wild cat and
presently broke away and came at me with head down. I presented my open
white umbrella and dodged aside, but the creature still came on, so I
jumped one of the high-banked dykes of the dry rice-fields among which we
were walking, but he came over too, jumping as smartly and cleverly as an
English hunter; so I took another "lep" and another, while he followed with
tail brandished aloft, warming to the chase with each presentation of the
umbrella and each dodging turn and leap. At last he became entangled with
his empty packs, and his driver secured him, while I breathlessly rejoined
my friends, who were doubled up in helpless laughter, vowing that neither
circus nor bull-fight was ever half so entertaining. Not being a spectator,
I missed the cream of the joke.
With natives both cows and oxen are usually placid enough, and very few
cases of goring are reported. Calves are handled freely, the mother
scarcely noticing it, except when the intruder is a stranger. But the
right of the cow to resent interference with her calf is recognised in
popular talk. This indeed is the case in England, among all sensible
farmers. I heard of one, the other day, whose son, handling a calf, was
severely horned by the mother. A lady calling on the farmer sympathised
with his son's misfortune and used very strong expressions as to the
abominable behaviour of the cow. The farmer listened and at last said in a
judicial tone: "Why, no, marm;--the cow were in her dooty, for we must all
purtect our yong." There is a touch of the Roman father as well as of the
natural philosopher in this wise saying, for though the son was sore in bed
and the parent was sorry for him, he knew that those who are skilful in cow
management seldom suffer from their horns.
Cattle are made to take part in curious rites, and enjoy many holidays of a
semi-religious kind, when they are adorned with necklaces of marigolds and
jessamine, and printed on flank and shoulder with an open hand dipped in
red, so that a modern Moses might be moved to wrath by something very like
cow-worship. Nor is this to be wondered at when the value of milk, which
takes a high and most important place in the Indian food scale is
considered. "Cows' milk is as Mothers' milk" say the women. "Milk and
children are from fortune" is another of their sayings. "May you bathe in
milk and rear many children" is a benediction among women,[2] and in pure
pride a swaggerer will say, "I have drunk more milk than you will ever get
of water"--in other words, I have always been well off, while you are a
scrub. When a cow is milked into the hollow of the hand, the milk, drunk
at once, is supposed to be peculiarly nourishing in quality. "One can stand
a kick from one's cow when she is in milk" has possibilities of application
beyond mere cows. Of a hungry country it is said, "One doesn't even get
sparrow's milk there." A Bengal saying recalling the French "When the cork
is drawn, the wine must be drunk" is, "Milk once drawn from the dug never
goes back." A relic of the Vedic times lingers in the name _Kamdhain_
applied to cows that are exceptionally good milkers. _Kamdhenu_ was the
wondrously productive cow of Indra that granted all desires.
[Footnote 2: Mr. B. Malabari mentions having heard this benediction
pronounced in Durbar over the present Gaekwar of Baroda.]
[Illustration: COW AND CALF]
There is propriety and sense in the sort of reverence that the poor of most
countries pay to God's gifts of food. Milk has a large share of this
wholesome elemental respect in India. "When a cow or buffalo is first
bought," writes Mr. Denzil Ibbetson, "or when she first gives milk after
calving, the first five streams are allowed to fall on the ground in honour
of the Earth-mother, or goddess,"--a widely worshipped deity,--"and at
every time of milking the first stream is so treated." The last is a
custom, however, as much honoured in the breach as in the observance.
Hindus of the old school complain of the decay under our educational system
of pious household ritual and beliefs. Among these is a rustic observance
of bread breaking. The first piece is for the cow, the second for the dog,
and the third for the crow. The cow's piece must not be bitten or mangled,
but the dog and the crow are expected to take what they can get with
gratitude. Regret for the old order as it changes is natural enough, but
with the harmless and the good some evil is also passing away; for God
fulfils himself in many ways.
Ghi, which is butter boiled to make it keep, is no less esteemed than milk,
and stands figuratively as it serves in fact, for richness and well-being.
Where we should say that a man lives in clover, they say, "He has five
fingers in the ghi." Usually by frugal people one or two fingers only are
put into the pot. Another saying is: "A straight finger extracts no ghi,"
_i.e._ one must go judiciously (or crookedly) to work in order to get
anything worth having. A precarious livelihood is expressed by, "Sometimes
a handful of ghi and sometimes a mouthful of lentils." The French gibe at
England,--"a hundred religions and only one sauce,"--(melted butter) may be
warrantable, but it is mere everyday fact in India, where the food would be
but sorry and innutritious fare without the mercy of ghi. The prosperity of
a man is often gauged by his indulgence in ghi, which has an infallible
effect on the figure. Vegetarian Hindus have a natural tendency to eat too
much, and a gaunt cultivator will point to a fat and prosperous tradesman
as a ghi-fed bullock. It will be observed that the hand is always spoken
of, and in fact the hand is always used. A Sikh peasant making you
welcome, will bring a bowl of milk, strongly impregnated with the wood
smoke with which milk vessels are purified, and, after he has put in some
sugar, will stir it with his fingers in the most friendly way. One of the
many compromises with the ordinances of caste, that make things pure or
impure, is their relaxation with reference to sweetmeats compounded of
sugar and ghi, an important part of the food of the people. The
confectioner is a man of no very exalted caste, but all may eat from his
hand. He abuses this privilege of reputed purity, and is in fact more dirty
in his person and more thoroughly saturated with the grease he handles than
there is any occasion for. One agent in the vast battery of elements that
produces the characteristic Indian odour of Indian cities and crowds is the
use of ghi as hair oil and as a lubricant for the skin after bathing. In
the south oil is much used for these purposes, but in most regions ghi is
popular, nor is it unwholesome except to the alien nose.
Wealth may be no longer expressed in terms of the cow, but the possession
of cows is accepted as a sign of being well-to-do. So the freedom from care
which is one of the alleviations of poverty, is stated in, "He sleeps well
who has neither cow nor calf." Where we should say "The early bird catches
the worm," the Indian rustic says "Who sleeps late gets the bull-calf, he
who rises early the cow-calf,"--which is more valuable. The saying
indicates the division of property among members of a family living
together. An early rising brother or cousin could change his bull for the
cow-calf of his lazy relative who ought to have been on the spot to look
after it, or a knavish neighbour might surreptitiously swap the new
births.
Bewitched cattle are not peculiar to benighted India, but may be heard of
even in Britain of the Board school. There is a more profound conviction in
Eastern superstitions, further intensified by the ever-present notion that
once the beast was man. A current story tells how a poor man borrowed a sum
of money far beyond his power to repay. Lying anxiously awake at night
among his oxen, he heard one say that the master would surely serve the
money-lender as an ox in the future life. So he rose and questioned that
wise bullock, who said: "Return the money to the usurer, and, since you are
in need, take me to the king and back me for that sum to fight his champion
elephant." This was done; the amazed king accepted the wager of his
fighting elephant against a lean ox, and the beasts were paraded in the
arena. The elephant ignominiously fled from the bullock, who snorted and
pawed the ground in meagre majesty. So the king paid the wager and the
elephant confessed that in a previous existence he had borrowed a large sum
and still owed it to the man who was now that starveling bullock. Our
English notions on this subject are mainly those of Mrs. Barbauld's tiny
but charming classic, _The transmigrations of Indur_, but to the native
mind the wandering soul has a more complex and disquieting fate than is
there indicated. The old birth stories of Buddhism, also, are milder and
less stern in retributive vengeance than many notions actually current.
Dire strokes of bereavement or misfortune, and grievous diseases, such as
leprosy, inflict a keener anguish, a more hopeless sorrow, when regarded as
punishments for sin committed in some past life.
These ideas are not distinctively Hindu in their main issue, which is the
vulgar demon belief that sends the souls of those who have died by violence
or in child-birth, or who in life showed strong character, to pl
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/40708