South Indian Beliefs : Preface

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This article is an extract from OMENS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF SOUTHERN INDIA By Edgar Thurston, C.I.E. Sometime superintendent of the Madras Government Museum and of the Ethnographic Survey of the Madras Presidency Assisted by K. Rangachari, M.A., of the Madras Government Museum. T. Fisher Unwin London: Adelphi Terrace Leipsic: Inselstrasse 20 1912

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South Indian Beliefs : Preface

This volume represents the results of many years of research into South Indian manners and customs, surviving, moribund, or deceased. Among the subjects dealt with are:—Some marriage customs; death ceremonies; omens, evil eye, charms, animal superstitions, sorcery, etc.; votive offerings; deformity and mutilation; torture in by-gone days, and a few stray survivals; corporal punishment in vernacular schools; slavery; making fire by friction; fire-walking; hook-swinging; infanticide; meriah sacrifice; dress; names of natives; the couvade; earth-eating; boomerang; steelyards, clepsydras, knuckle-dusters, cock-fighting, tallies, dry-cupping.

Castes and Tribes of Southern India.

By Edgar Thurston, C.I.E., assisted by K. Rangachari, M.A., of the Madras Government Museum. With many Illustrations. In Seven Volumes. Royal 8vo, cloth. 23s. net.

This work is of great value to ethnologists, and to those who are interested in Indian life, religions, and customs. It contains a mass of information as to the life, legendary lore, and traditional practices of all the southern Indian castes and tribes, arranged in the form of a dictionary, and is elaborately illustrated by reproductions of photographs. Published at the Government Press, Madras. Agent: T. FISHER UNWIN, London [4]

Malayan exorcist with fowl in his mouth.

Preface 2

This book deals mainly with some aspects of what may be termed the psychical life of the inhabitants of the Madras Presidency, and the Native States of Travancore and Cochin. In my “Ethnographic Notes in Southern India” (1906), I stated that the confused chapter devoted to omens, animal superstitions, evil eye, charms, sorcery, etc., was a mere outline sketch of a group of subjects, which, if worked up, would furnish material for a volume. This chapter has now been remodelled, and supplemented by notes collected since its publication, and information which lies buried in the seven bulky volumes of my encyclopædic “Castes and Tribes of Southern India” (1909).

The area dealt with (roughly, 182,000 square miles, with a population of 47,800,000) is so vast that I have had perforce to supplement the personal knowledge acquired in the course of wandering expeditions in various parts of Southern India, and in other ways, by recourse to the considerable mass of information, which is hidden away in official reports, gazetteers, journals of societies, books, etc.

To the many friends and correspondents, European [8]and Indian, who have helped me in the accumulation of facts, and those whose writings I have made liberal use of, I would once more express collectively, and with all sincerity, my great sense of indebtedness. My thanks are due to Mr L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer for supplying me with the illustrations of Malabar yantrams. [9]